Interdisciplinarity needs supervisors and staff who are open and committed to the articulation of social sciences and humanities. To support this, Graduate Schools can:
- Recruit staff with a clear interdisciplinary profile, for instance based on the recommendation of an interdisciplinary committee
- Stimulate and (financially) award interdisciplinary research collaboration and supervision, for instance in:
- Offer teaching waivers for faculty members from different faculties of the university, to engage in delivering interdisciplinary courses at the Graduate School
- Dedicate funds to interdisciplinary training initiatives, workshops, seminars and lectures that faculty members from different departments want to jointly organize
- Support co-teaching of courses by faculty members from different disciplinary backgrounds
- Organize training courses for supervisors on a university level which ensures their interaction with peers from different faculties
- Form interdisciplinary supervisory teams to guide the study of the PhD student
- Form interdisciplinary examination committees or panels
Best practice: An example are the university-wide courses taught at the Central European University, the Doctoral School of Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations (CEU). This initiative provides financial and administrative support for faculty members keen to jointly develop and teach courses that are going to be open to all students at CEU, so-called University-wide Courses (UWCs). Once a year, a public call for UWCs is published. Proposals need to be:
a) interdepartmental by design;
b) co-taught by academic staff members from different departments and assisted by teaching assistants;
c) open to all graduate students of CEU to register for them [UWC's].