Don’t rely on chance meetings for scientific discoveries

The Smithsonian Institution would do well to acquire the sluggish photocopier that served the third floor of the University of Pennsylvania’s clinical research building in 1998. It helped end the COVID-19 pandemic and launched a Nobel Prize.

That was where two researchers from different fields, Katalin Karikó, a biochemist, and Drew Weissman, an immunologist, met. While awaiting their copies, the pair got to talking about whether messenger RNA — which carries the instructions for the proteins that help our cells function — could be used to make vaccines. They went on to make the crucial, prize-winning discovery that slightly modifying mRNA stopped the body from quickly destroying it, which had hampered past attempts to use mRNA therapeutically.

That central insight ultimately gave us the first FDA-approved mRNA vaccine. Today, Karikó, Weissman, and many other researchers are exploring how modified mRNA could lead to better treatments for many diseases, including cancer.

It’s a perfect example of how interdisciplinary science can change the world — but how it often takes unusual mechanisms, or even a chance meeting, to bring people together across different fields of study.

While well-defined scientific specialties are deeply explored, the most creative findings often arise where distinct bodies of knowledge intersect. Molecular biology began to flower in the 1940s as chemists and physicists brought their perspectives to biology, to understand the building blocks of life. Genomics arose in the 1980s when engineers and mathematicians partnered with biologists to extract the troves of information contained within our DNA.

Even though interdisciplinary science is incredibly fruitful, pursuing it has been surprisingly challenging. That’s why a new university ranking, with results from the ranking announced Thursday by Times Higher Education and Schmidt Science Fellows, recognizes universities worldwide that are creating the conditions needed for boundary-breaking science. The Interdisciplinary Science Ranking includes a surprising mix of institutions — old and new, Western and Eastern — that are prioritizing a new way to teach and conduct science. These leaders offer others in academia, industry, government, and philanthropy a chance to see what’s working — and find ways to nurture interdisciplinary science with more funding, improved incentives, and community building.

Take, for example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which topped the list. We’ve both been involved with building institutions connected with MIT, particularly the Broad Institute. An independent entity affiliated with MIT, Harvard, and five Harvard-associated hospitals, the Broad Institute was founded to speed discovery in genomic medicine by bringing together biologists, physicians, mathematicians, chemists, and engineers across these institutions. Without traditional departments, the Broad Institute is organized instead around cross-cutting programs and platforms that allow researchers to work side by side, learn to speak each other’s languages, and join forces to tackle big challenges.

The biggest barrier to creating more interdisciplinary science institutions is funding. Grant proposals, particularly to government agencies, are judged by a panel of experts within a well-defined field. Interdisciplinary ideas frequently fall into the cracks. Many funders are also risk averse, favoring proposals with extensive “preliminary results” that hew close to what they already know will likely work — and failing to embrace out-of-the-box with the potential for huge impact. That’s why philanthropic funding has often played a key role in launching interdisciplinary science.

The Broad Institute would not have been possible without immense philanthropic resources, nor would Schmidt Science Fellows, the catalyst behind the ranking, which supports and convenes researchers who want to pursue multiple disciplines. To spur more efforts like these, funders in government, industry, and philanthropy should seek out and support interdisciplinary efforts, being prepared to take risks and provide longer-term funds.

Another key factor is creating better incentives for interdisciplinary researchers. Most scientists are trained and begin their careers in traditional departments. That’s a completely reasonable way to organize scientific pursuit, but it can inadvertently limit scientists’ scope and make it harder to cross borders. Newer universities, notably in Asia and Africa, have more flexibility to, say, organize themselves around particular goals rather than subjects. And all institutions would benefit from administrative support for researchers who work across silos, promotion systems that recognize efforts in multiple disciplines, and recruitment of researchers who demonstrate interdisciplinary potential.

The most important feature of the institutions on the ranking is the most intangible and the toughest to replicate: the ability to build and nurture interdisciplinary communities. For most scientists, their subject-specific department is their only professional community. Each has its own unique culture, local jargon, and decision-making processes. Interdisciplinary science is more like a cosmopolitan city, where the barriers are lower to striking up conversations, finding mentors, and attending meetings outside one’s area of expertise.

We know that the barriers can dissolve because we saw it happen in 2020 as many scientists joined forces to find solutions to the pandemic. But the world of science generally remains fragmented.

Instead of waiting for chance meetings — or crises — let’s make interdisciplinary science routine rather than the exception.

Wendy Schmidt is president and cofounder of the Schmidt Family Foundation and Schmidt Ocean Institute and cofounder of Schmidt Sciences. Eric S. Lander is founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and was one of the leaders of the Human Genome Project.