Unexpected side-effects of interdisciplinary collaborations: three supervisors; one language; two interpretations.

Unexpected side-effects of interdisciplinary collaborations: three supervisors; one language; two interpretations.

Interdisciplinary collaborations are well documented in the literature as a strategy to develop diverse expert knowledge as well as research, organisational and educational initiatives. It is possibly a fundamental requirement for collaborative team members from non-aligned discipline groups to possess for shared understanding of the proposed project and to establish common language to ensure terminology and understand of the project’s phenomenon is maintained. An example case study is a PhD project involving interdisciplinary team members from the School of Creative Arts and the School of Health and Medical Sciences (Paramedicine). While all team members speak English as their first language, it is apparent that different disciplines interpret the word ‘trauma’ to have diverse meanings. Subsequently, a proposed development of a glossary of terms is necessary, not only for readers of the completed manuscript, but also for the supervisory team throughout the duration of the project to confirm all members have a shared understanding of the terms of reference for the project. Documenting the interdisciplinary experience and differing interpretation of the word ‘trauma’ makes for an interesting qualitative research study and may provide new understandings for future research collaborations between creative industries and emergency related health sciences.

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