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Fostering Disruptive Interdisciplinary Science
Cell Systems
Editorial Fostering Disruptive Interdisciplinary Science Interdisciplinary work, by definition, falls in between. It uses techniques from different fields, breaks with convention to answer questions, frames new questions altogether, and, at its inspiring best, paints a different picture of what is and what could be. At Cell Systems, we live through the trials and tribulations of reviewing work that crosses disciplinary boundaries with many of the papers we publish. The challenge of this review process is frequently compounded by the potentially disruptive nature of many interdisciplinary studies. In the popular lexicon, the term ‘‘disruptive’’ is often used when ‘‘different’’ would suffice, typically to convey that the difference has importance and consequence. Yet in the context in which it was popularized by the management scholar Clayton Christianson, disruptive has a very precise meaning. It describes an innovation that gains a foothold at the ‘‘bottom’’ of a market and later works its way ‘‘upmarket’’ to displace established practices. Notably, the disruptive innovation is often markedly inferior to established practices when evaluated using traditional metrics of value, but it is superior according to nonstandard measures. Here, taking a narrow definition of disruptive that hews close to its roots in innovation theory, I list a few challenges in the review of disruptive interdisciplinary science and, in future editorials, hope to suggest a few proposals for fostering it. The Reviewer Quandary Interdisciplinary work often requires reviewers with different expertise. In fact, no single reviewer may be able to comment authoritatively on the technical quality of all of the results of a study. As a result, reviewers are asked to comment on aspects of a paper that fall outside their core expertise, leading to ‘‘serious’’ concerns that, although well motivated, may not be so serious. Or maybe they are. Standards for what constitutes work of the highest caliber vary between fields. These standard practices in a field are honed over years. They are often accumulated through painful lessons learned by chasing misleading results confounded by unrecognized artifacts or missing key control experiments. As such, standard practices facilitate efficient progress for research in a field, but nevertheless present high, and what can be frustrating, barriers of acceptance for interdisciplinary work. This combination of reviewers from different fields and multiple standards of excellence complicates the evaluation of interdisciplinary work. In practical terms, the review of a study spanning two fields can generate two non-overlapping sets of criticisms requiring double the work to address. Nurture Potential, Minimize Splat Knowing what to do with a long list of criticisms is hard. When the comments are coming from viewpoints that value the various
aspects of a study in different or even opposite ways, it’s extra hard. The situation is even more challenging when claims of disruptive potential will be validated likely only through the test of time. Moreover, the strong currents of conventional wisdom can obscure when ‘‘the best is the last’’ (http://ben-evans.com/ benedictevans/2016/4/20/the-best-is-the-last)—that is, when what’s established is so good that large leaps forward will likely require a radical departure from the norm. But as mentioned, there is value in conventional wisdom and the standards of a field. Thus, determining what is ‘‘truly’’ high quality or whether criticisms really are ‘‘serious’’ is often not straightforward. One wrestles with these issues when evaluating potentially disruptive interdisciplinary work. Ideally, a list of comments can be sorted in an informed and nuanced way to distinguish must-have from nice-to-have revisions. To do this, it is helpful to know not only whether the data support the claims, but also whether those claims, assuming they hold, would have a large impact. Often the people with the necessary breadth of perspective and vision for potential impact are the authors of a study. Their views on whether a new experiment is feasible or would substantially strengthen the claims of a paper are valuable. Yet they are also the ones with the most to lose if a key control does not yield an expected result. There are many pressures to claim that a research contribution is disruptive when in fact it would be more reasonable to simply say that it is different. Is it helpful to have checks and balances to reign in claims stretched beyond their means? Can we nurture would-be disruptors so that they are less likely to fall flat while attempting to lift off? Open Questions Fostering disruptive interdisciplinary work is exciting but nontrivial. The challenges outlined above are by no means the only ones. By the nature of our work, at Cell Systems we are confronted with these issues frequently and strive to address them thoughtfully and with—dare we say—disruptive innovations of our own. Our perspective has been informed by numerous conversations with investigators, fellows, and students, but we are seeking more input. We invite you, our readers, to contribute Letters to the Editor describing your own thoughts and experiences on this topic. We aim to publish select letters in future issues of the journal, along with our own proposals for fostering this important work.
H. Craig Mak Editor, Cell Systems http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cels.2016.05.002
Cell Systems 2, May 25, 2016 ª 2016 Published by Elsevier Inc. 289
Editorial Fostering Disruptive Interdisciplinary Science Interdisciplinary work, by definition, falls in between. It uses techniques from different fields, breaks with convention to answer questions, frames new questions altogether, and, at its inspiring best, paints a different picture of what is and what could be. At Cell Systems, we live through the trials and tribulations of reviewing work that crosses disciplinary boundaries with many of the papers we publish. The challenge of this review process is frequently compounded by the potentially disruptive nature of many interdisciplinary studies. In the popular lexicon, the term ‘‘disruptive’’ is often used when ‘‘different’’ would suffice, typically to convey that the difference has importance and consequence. Yet in the context in which it was popularized by the management scholar Clayton Christianson, disruptive has a very precise meaning. It describes an innovation that gains a foothold at the ‘‘bottom’’ of a market and later works its way ‘‘upmarket’’ to displace established practices. Notably, the disruptive innovation is often markedly inferior to established practices when evaluated using traditional metrics of value, but it is superior according to nonstandard measures. Here, taking a narrow definition of disruptive that hews close to its roots in innovation theory, I list a few challenges in the review of disruptive interdisciplinary science and, in future editorials, hope to suggest a few proposals for fostering it. The Reviewer Quandary Interdisciplinary work often requires reviewers with different expertise. In fact, no single reviewer may be able to comment authoritatively on the technical quality of all of the results of a study. As a result, reviewers are asked to comment on aspects of a paper that fall outside their core expertise, leading to ‘‘serious’’ concerns that, although well motivated, may not be so serious. Or maybe they are. Standards for what constitutes work of the highest caliber vary between fields. These standard practices in a field are honed over years. They are often accumulated through painful lessons learned by chasing misleading results confounded by unrecognized artifacts or missing key control experiments. As such, standard practices facilitate efficient progress for research in a field, but nevertheless present high, and what can be frustrating, barriers of acceptance for interdisciplinary work. This combination of reviewers from different fields and multiple standards of excellence complicates the evaluation of interdisciplinary work. In practical terms, the review of a study spanning two fields can generate two non-overlapping sets of criticisms requiring double the work to address. Nurture Potential, Minimize Splat Knowing what to do with a long list of criticisms is hard. When the comments are coming from viewpoints that value the various
aspects of a study in different or even opposite ways, it’s extra hard. The situation is even more challenging when claims of disruptive potential will be validated likely only through the test of time. Moreover, the strong currents of conventional wisdom can obscure when ‘‘the best is the last’’ (http://ben-evans.com/ benedictevans/2016/4/20/the-best-is-the-last)—that is, when what’s established is so good that large leaps forward will likely require a radical departure from the norm. But as mentioned, there is value in conventional wisdom and the standards of a field. Thus, determining what is ‘‘truly’’ high quality or whether criticisms really are ‘‘serious’’ is often not straightforward. One wrestles with these issues when evaluating potentially disruptive interdisciplinary work. Ideally, a list of comments can be sorted in an informed and nuanced way to distinguish must-have from nice-to-have revisions. To do this, it is helpful to know not only whether the data support the claims, but also whether those claims, assuming they hold, would have a large impact. Often the people with the necessary breadth of perspective and vision for potential impact are the authors of a study. Their views on whether a new experiment is feasible or would substantially strengthen the claims of a paper are valuable. Yet they are also the ones with the most to lose if a key control does not yield an expected result. There are many pressures to claim that a research contribution is disruptive when in fact it would be more reasonable to simply say that it is different. Is it helpful to have checks and balances to reign in claims stretched beyond their means? Can we nurture would-be disruptors so that they are less likely to fall flat while attempting to lift off? Open Questions Fostering disruptive interdisciplinary work is exciting but nontrivial. The challenges outlined above are by no means the only ones. By the nature of our work, at Cell Systems we are confronted with these issues frequently and strive to address them thoughtfully and with—dare we say—disruptive innovations of our own. Our perspective has been informed by numerous conversations with investigators, fellows, and students, but we are seeking more input. We invite you, our readers, to contribute Letters to the Editor describing your own thoughts and experiences on this topic. We aim to publish select letters in future issues of the journal, along with our own proposals for fostering this important work.
H. Craig Mak Editor, Cell Systems http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cels.2016.05.002
Cell Systems 2, May 25, 2016 ª 2016 Published by Elsevier Inc. 289