Long abstract:

Inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) knowledge production faces a set of paradoxes inherent to the co-production of knowledge in large research centres. Taking a large Swiss centre of competence as a case study, we identified two paradoxes inherent to research and its transfer at the interface of architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC). The research centre composes of a highly interdisciplinary pool of researchers and is funded with an explicit aim of enhancing ITD-research. Through an STS-inspired ethnography communicated in 6 interrelated narratives, we argue that ITD work is challenged by two paradoxes – defined as “contradictory yet interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time (Smith and Lewis, 2011: 382).” Building on recent advances in the paradox theory and STS, we further argue that these paradoxes are in fact intrinsic to ITD work in discourse and practice. While transfer to industry is challenged by the different aims of truth-making and profit-making, reflected particularly in varying career incentives, team science is challenged by the cooperation-competition paradox.

Employing the paradoxes as analytical tools to discuss the ethnographic accounts, we shape the argument through cycles of theorizing. Doing this, we adopt notions from management literature on paradoxes and combine them with a heuristic ITD tool to overcome challenges in future ITD research work and management later to be tested in practice with members of the unit of study. We conclude by arguing that strategic management of inherent ITD-paradoxes could strengthen collaborative models and methodologies in ITD-teams in large research centres.