School of Humanities: Early Career Convivium

The importance of interdisciplinarity: challenges and benefits

Lorraine K Tyler
Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Cambridge
Sin Wai-Kin Distinguished Visiting Professor, School of Humanities (Linguistics), HKU

The global trend is towards interdisciplinarity. It is widely recognised that many of the most
important problems engaging disciplines in the humanities and social sciences cross multiple
disciplinary boundaries. This is increasingly reflected in the major research calls coming from
national and international funders. University Development officers argue that the interdisciplinary
projects are most attractive to outside donors.

In this informal discussion we will talk about the advantages and potential concerns associated
with interdisciplinarity and I will take as a relevant example the recent development at the
University of Cambridge of a strategic initiative in the language sciences which has now become
an official Interdisciplinary Research Centre.

The history of this development illustrates the challenges that need to be taken on to develop an
interdisciplinary community and the kinds of collaborative projects that emerge as such a
community takes shape.

Date: 30 Nov, 2018 (Fri)
Time: 12:30-2:00pm
Venus: 4.19, Faculty Exhibition Room, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU

Registration required. First come, first served.

To register, please contact Karen Leung (kklleung@hku.hk)