Today I’ve been rereading interviews from a research project about collaboration in interdisciplinary education. It’s been wonderful to remind myself of students, professional services staff and academics striving wholehearted together to find ways to collaborate across boundaries to respond to the global challenges that pose existential threats to our survival.

One sad comment did strike me though, particularly in the context of the current HE financial crisis. Talking about collaborative interdisciplinary teaching one of the participants remarked pithly that “there’s no time to develop relationships because they don’t cost that into their model.”

Given our current cultural tendency to only cost things that can be numerically measured, I decided to think about what questions I would put into surveys for staff and students that might account for the learning needed to respond to global challenges. I’ve started with 6 for staff and 6 for students. What others would you add?

For staff, on a scale of strongly agree to strongly disagree:

• I can take time to build relationships with colleagues from other subject areas without it harming my career.
• I am under pressure to show the financial value of my work on short timescales. (scored negatively)
• I feel supported to seek solutions beyond the traditional boundaries of my suject area.
• For promotion, the volume of my academic work matters more than the long term contribution (scored negatively)
• Taking time to situate my work thoroughly in the wider context of global challenges is valued in my organisation.
• My university supports me to build long-term mutually supportive relationships with organisations in other sectors.

For students, on a scale of strongly agree to strongly disagree:

• During this module, I learned to see the world from a perspective that challenged my prior assumptions.
• Students who think deeply for themselves, rather than using AI to cut corners, do better on this module.
• On this module I have felt supported to respond to frightening aspects of the world rather than turning away.
• All students, whatever their backgrounds or perspectives, are genuinely welcomed on this module.
• On this module, I experienced the value of collaborating with students who see the world differently from me.
• On this module, I felt able to tackle challenging topics without being penalised for taking wrong turns.

Photo by Deng Xiang on Unsplash