The Independent Social Research Foundation exists to fund social science research that is interdisciplinary and innovative. But what is the value of interdisciplinarity to the social sciences? What is interdisciplinarity? Does it imply a directive towards the ideal of a unitary social science, or a pragmatic attempt to reduce insularity and factionalism? Is its purpose to promote interchange of methods and concepts between existing disciplines, or to break down demarcations between them and allow ‘new’ disciplines to emerge? Distinct ‘logics’ of interdisciplinarity have been canvassed; has interdisciplinarity now become a ‘portmanteau concept’?

The intended result of interdisciplinary work is often said to be ‘innovation’. Interdisciplinarity produces new theories and concepts: innovation results from applying new categories and new technologies – new ways of seeing the world and doing things in it. But is there anything more to this than re-describing what is there ‘anyway’ and putting it to better, more efficient, or just different use, always in pursuit of the same human goals? Are we condemned to re-discovery, of the old in a new guise? And (an old question) would we recognise the truly new if we had never encountered it before? Questions such as these ramify into many disciplines and invite many responses. The Workshop takes an empirical approach by considering the interdisciplinary research the ISRF is currently funding, presented by some of the ISRF’s Fellows.