| dc.description.abstract | Purpose – The Norwegian University of Science and Technology has begun a major campus development project with ambitious goals such as promoting innovation, collaboration, and knowledge development. Interdisciplinarity is seen as an important approach to achieve these goals. There are multiple factors that might influence interdisciplinary work, such as organisational, cultural, technological, and physical factors, and there is a need for an approach to discuss all these factors in context. This paper will examine the concept of interdisciplinarity and whether Actor-Network Theory (ANT) can be a useful approach when it comes to shaping an academic community. Design/methodology/approach – A literature study was performed to investigate what existing literature says about interdisciplinarity and the different factors influencing such work. Further, it investigates if interdisciplinarity can be discussed towards ANT and if this can help expand the discussion on interdisciplinary work further. Findings – The findings in this paper show that multiple factors might influence interdisciplinary work. Actor-Network Theory is an interesting approach since it looks at how both tangible and intangible factors interact. Organisational, cultural, and technological factors and the physical space must be seen in relation to each other to get the full effect of the different factors to achieve interdisciplinarity. Originality/value – The findings in this paper can be helpful to further develop the discussion and understanding of interdisciplinarity. Putting the different factors influencing interdisciplinarity in a context it might help planners and designers to get a more holistic picture of how to promote innovation in for instance campus development projects. | en_US |
