Working across disciplines in collaborative theme groups: popular AIAS programme is accepting new applications

The Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS) is again inviting researchers from disciplines as diverse as biology and business management to join forces in interdisciplinary research groups. Solutions to society’s complex challenges will only be robust if they’re watertight from a variety of perspectives, says AIAS’ director.

AIAS has just opened a new round of applications for the project. This time around, two new projects will be selected which will begin their collaboration in August 2025.

Three departments/schools. Two faculties. One research theme.

This is the recipe for the Collaborative Theme Groups 3-2-1-GO! initiative from AIAS (Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies) that brings together researchers from different disciplines to work on the same research theme.

Applications are now being accepted for new interdisciplinary projects under this popular programme, which was launched in August with the establishment of four research groups.

The programme provides support for researchers to collaborate on addressing the kinds of challenges that can best be tackled through an interdisciplinary approach.

This is the rationale for the 3-2-1 structure: the research groups must be comprised of researchers from at least three different departments/schools and two faculties working together on the same research theme.

Hunger for interdisciplinary forums

The enthusiasm that greeted the first round of the project testifies to a high level of interest in interdisciplinary research initiatives, says AIAS director Andreas Roepstorff:

“We received fourteen applications of extremely high quality from across the university. There’s a hunger for creating these forums in which it’s possible to create interdisciplinary projects.”

The four research groups have now been active for six months, and are working on a wide range of themes, from interdisciplinary approaches to wetland wellbeing to the spatial, aesthetic, and affective dimensions of medical dissection.

“There have to be researchers from at least three departments or schools, because they can probably sort things out themselves if there are only two, and the cross-faculty requirement is because the faculties have mechanisms to handle internal collaboration,” Roepstorff explains.

The initiative is the brainchild of a cross-faculty taskforce on interdisciplinarity established by AU’s Research Committee. The taskforce, which meets at AIAS, is responsible for generating ideas on how to promote interdisciplinarity at AU.

Building bridges between biology and business

The Bridging Biology and Business project brings together researchers from five departments and three faculties:

as long as they’re working on the same research theme, there’s no limit on how many departments and faculties can be represented in the 3-2-1-GO! research groups.

This project involves researchers from Nat, Tech and BSS whose objective is to contribute to a holistic understanding of biodiversity in a business context in order to help businesses successfully navigate the complexities of the new sustainability reporting required by the European Union's new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

According to Helle Alsted Søndergaard, an associate professor at the Department of Management who is behind the project, this is a perfect example of the kind of project that requires an interdisciplinary approach. She says:

“There’s a need to integrate the insight the biologists have about biological metrics and principles with the knowledge we have about how businesses, corporate reporting and corporate strategy operate. I don’t think we’ll be able to move forward unless these two fields work hand-in-hand.”

Roepstorff agrees that it’s evident that challenges such as this – and the many complex challenges the world is facing today – must be approached holistically. As he puts it:

“The solutions we need to find will only be robust if they’re watertight from a variety of perspectives. There are lot of ways to do this, but one very effective one is to create this kind of space. Then you can progress really fast.”

And the aspect of establishing a space and a platform for the researchers is really important, Søndergaard says:

“The most important part is the platform, actually. Before we had a little network we started with the biologists ourselves, but we didn’t really know what to do with ourselves. Now we have a platform where people can see that we’re working with this field and a physical location where we can meet where there’s room for us.” She adds:

“The university is not organised in a way that makes this easy. It’s important that the university values that people are willing to take on the extra coordination, because it’s easier and more straightforward to just do what we usually do.”

It’s about turbocharging your life as a researcher

The groups themselves decide what their objectives for their projects are, and what their success criteria are.

For Søndergaard, at the end of the day it’s publications and projects for grant proposals. For others, it’s inspiration and a network that can benefit their research. 

“The success criterion for the project as a whole is that we end up with a group of researchers who feel that they’ve turbocharged their lives as researchers. Both in terms of the projects you work on and the connections you have, but also what you can actually do as a researcher,” Roepstorff says.

The first four 3-2-1-GO! research groups include researchers from all five faculties and will be active until August 2026.

AIAS has just opened a new round of applications for the project. This time around, two new projects will be selected which will begin their collaboration in August 2025. The application deadline is 10 April.

“The knowledge geek in me is looking forward to following along from the sidelines. The topics the four groups are working with now are insanely interesting and really important.

We can learn a lot from researchers who dare to make their way into a space where there are no hard and fast lines between basic research and applied research, but where you’re actually doing something where these elements illuminate each other.”

Explore the four currently active research groups and apply here