Bridging Disciplines in the Brain, Behavioral, and Clinical Sciences (IOM, 2000)

Recommendation 1 Federal and private research sponsors should seek to identify areas that can be most effectively investigated with interdisciplinary approaches.

Recommendation 2 Funding agencies and universities should remove the barriers to interdisciplinary research and training … by

• Requiring commitments from university administration to qualify for funding for interdisciplinary efforts. These should include supportive promotion policies, allocation of appropriate overhead, and allocation of shared facilities.

• Facilitate interactions among investigators in different disciplines by funding shared and core facilities.

• Encouraging legislation to expand loan repayment programs to include investigators outside NIH who are engaged in funded interdisciplinary and translational research.

• Supporting peer review that facilitates interdisciplinary efforts.

• Continuing and expanding partnerships among funding agencies to provide the broadest base for interdisciplinary efforts.

• Indicating in funding announcements that training is an integral component on the interdisciplinary research project.

Universities should:

• Allocate appropriate credit for interdisciplinary efforts … including fair allocation of research overhead costs to the home departments of all investigators and a fair credit for faculty contributions.

• Review and revise appointment, promotion, and tenure policies to ensure that they do not impede interdisciplinary research and teaching.

• Facilitate interaction among investigators through support for shared facilities.

• Encourage development, maintenance, and evolution of interdisciplinary institutes, centers, and programs for appropriate problems.