Workshop: Interdisciplinarity in Action: Methods for Fruitful Teamwork

— with Silvio Suckow and Sara Saba (both WI)

When: 2024 (t.b.a)
Where: WI Flexroom (A1 04)

Postponed! The announced workshop on interdisciplinary (practical) methods has been postponed to 2024 (the exact date and program will be announce in due time! Stay tuned). A shorter, slightly modified online version of the workshop will be offered on Friday, 6 October 2023, please contact directly Sara Saba (sara.saba@weizenbaum-institut.de ) or Stephanie Bouré (stephanie.boure@weizenbaum-institut.de) if you are interested in participating.


Interdisciplinarity is one of the core features of research at the Weizenbaum Institute. But how can collaboration across disciplinary boundaries succeed? For this purpose, during the workshop, we would like to go through concrete small-group exercises that you can integrate into your research routine and work out principles of productive collaboration. The goal of the workshop is to offer possible perspectives and practical advice in devising the structure of an interdisciplinary team and its work and to practice a variety of possible methods that help team building and teamwork. The workshop is open to all those who are interested, whether they lead or co-work in an interdisciplinary project. Places are allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. A slightly modified online version of the course will also be offered in the context of the QPD.

Preliminary program:

10:00-10:15 Welcome

10:15-12:00 Apply concrete exercises to communicate with each other across disciplines (3 groups of a max. of 4 participants)

12:00-13:30 Joint lunch break and informal exchange

13:30-14:30 Input presentation by an external speaker (TBA) and Q/A

14:30-15:30 Joint elaboration of principles and structures of cross-disciplinary collaboration

15:30-16:00 Wrap up and take-home message

Silvio Suckow has a strong epistemological interest in the development of interdisciplinary research settings. To this end, he has spent four years studying the WI as part of his (almost finished) dissertation. Furthermore, he has developed an application-oriented online course for interdisciplinary competencies (idc.wzb.eu) and is trying out different knowledge communication formats.

Sara Saba, PhD, serves as ‘officer for interdisciplinary formats’ at the WI. Originally a Classicist, she has worked for several years in interdisciplinary research groups at the Fraunhofer, progressively moving from research to project management in science, especially in interdisciplinary research contexts.