Definition of Interdisciplinary

Interdisciplinarity is the act of drawing from and integrating two or more academic disciplines, professions, technologies, departments, their methods and insights, in the pursuit of a common goal. Interdisciplinary approaches typically focus on problems felt by the investigators to be too complex or wide-ranging to be dealt with using the knowledge and methodology of a single discipline, e.g. the AIDS pandemic or global warming. The term may be applied where the subject is felt to have been neglected or even misrepresented in the traditional disciplinary structure of research institutions, for example, Women's Studies or ethnic area studies.