Multidisciplinary Innovation Projects

Most of my academic career was dedicated to working on interdisciplinary research projects. In the early days, I found there was little consideration for the inherent challenges of this type of work, particularly in managing power dynamics across the STEM/social science disciplinary divide. While there is a lot to be gained from interdisciplinary research, it can be a hard road to walk. It’s so refreshing to see interdisciplinary research gaining more prominence from funders, and critically, a more intentional approach to creating supportive spaces for people to communicate across disciplinary divides. Here are some key lessons I learnt along the (sometimes rocky) journey: 🔹Language Matters: Ensure everyone on the team understands the key terms used to articulate the research. For instance, on an antimicrobial resistance project I was working on, the term ‘driver’ meant different things to different academics. Spending time interrogating this helped the team to have a shared understanding of the objectives of the project. 🔹 Regular Knowledge-Sharing Sessions: Building an understanding of what each team member is doing to contribute to the project can help to foster a positive working environment. Facilitated sessions, where each team member presents their work, can help to foster a shared understanding. For me, learning about how microbiological sampling techniques worked was helpful when developing my own ethnographic study. 🔹 Foster a Culture of Mutual Respect: Post-docs and project administration staff, often the hardest working, sometimes see their contributions rendered invisible. I cannot stress enough how vital it is to create an environment where all disciplines and team members are valued equally. Avoid empty platitudes; good leadership comes with actively listening to each other and recognising that the project wouldn’t happen without every member of the team. 🔹 Utilise Facilitation Techniques: Don’t assume that a group will naturally come together; intentional facilitation, such as round-robin discussions, ensures everyone has a chance to contribute. This can also help to manage power dynamics and give voice to quieter members. 🔹Create a Psychologically safe space: When people do not feel safe to share their ideas, they will not take risks and experiment. Safe spaces for learning are essential; public criticism and shaming can deter people from sharing. Encourage team members to explore ideas outside their comfort zones in a way that is supportive. Creating safe spaces is the only way people will experiment together. Interdisciplinary research can indeed be a hard road to walk, but the journey is enriched with diverse perspectives and the potential for groundbreaking discoveries. It's about managing the complexities with care and ensuring every voice is heard and respected. Let's continue to push the boundaries of knowledge, together. #interdisciplinaryresearch #academicresearch #power #facilitation

Should you try Google’s famous “20% time” experiment to encourage innovation? We tried this at Duolingo years ago. It didn’t work. It wasn’t enough time for people to start meaningful projects, and very few people took advantage of it because the framework was pretty vague. I knew there had to be other ways to drive innovation at the company. So, here are 3 other initiatives we’ve tried, what we’ve learned from each, and what we're going to try next. 💡 Innovation Awards: Annual recognition for those who move the needle with boundary-pushing projects. The upside: These awards make our commitment to innovation clear, and offer a well-deserved incentive to those who have done remarkable work. The downside: It’s given to individuals, but we want to incentivize team work. What’s more, it’s not necessarily a framework for coming up with the next big thing. 💻 Hackathon: This is a good framework, and lots of companies do it. Everyone (not just engineers) can take two days to collaborate on and present anything that excites them, as long as it advances our mission or addresses a key business need. The upside: Some of our biggest features grew out of hackathon projects, from the Duolingo English Test (born at our first hackathon in 2013) to our avatar builder. The downside: Other than the time/resource constraint, projects rarely align with our current priorities. The ones that take off hit the elusive combo of right time + a problem that no other team could tackle. 💥 Special Projects: Knowing that ideal equation, we started a new program for fostering innovation, playfully dubbed DARPA (Duolingo Advanced Research Project Agency). The idea: anyone can pitch an idea at any time. If they get consensus on it and if it’s not in the purview of another team, a cross-functional group is formed to bring the project to fruition. The most creative work tends to happen when a problem is not in the clear purview of a particular team; this program creates a path for bringing these kinds of interdisciplinary ideas to life. Our Duo and Lily mascot suits (featured often on our social accounts) came from this, as did our Duo plushie and the merch store. (And if this photo doesn't show why we needed to innovate for new suits, I don't know what will!) The biggest challenge: figuring out how to transition ownership of a successful project after the strike team’s work is done. 👀 What’s next? We’re working on a program that proactively identifies big picture, unassigned problems that we haven’t figured out yet and then incentivizes people to create proposals for solving them. How that will work is still to be determined, but we know there is a lot of fertile ground for it to take root. How does your company create an environment of creativity that encourages true innovation? I'm interested to hear what's worked for you, so please feel free to share in the comments! #duolingo #innovation #hackathon #creativity #bigideas

UK Government Modern Industrial Strategy launched in the last 24 hours: what does it mean? I’ve been exploring this using #systemsthinking and a causal loop diagram (CLD) to map its feedback structures. A few key takeaways which might be relevant #business schools… Systemic Insights via CLD: – Investment → R\&D → Innovation → Productivity → Economic Growth → Investment – Skills ↔ Innovation & Infrastructure → Tech Adoption → Innovation → Productivity Key “hubs” include **Innovation**, **Productivity**, & **Economic Growth**, with **Collaboration** and **Skills** as powerful levers. Negative links (e.g., regulatory uncertainty) can weaken investment, while peripheral nodes (e.g., Net-Zero in our simplified map) may need stronger connections to reflect real-world influence. This underscores the need for aligning R&D, #skills, infrastructure, and #sustainability objectives. So, what should business schools do? 🤝 Strengthen Industry Partnerships: Collaborate with firms & regional clusters on real projects. Connect students/faculty to innovation initiatives, boosting learning and local impact. 💡 Focus on Emerging Skills: Update programs for digital literacy, clean-energy management, & advanced manufacturing basics. Equip grads with in-demand skills that feed productivity and innovation loops. 🚀 Foster Entrepreneurship & Scale-Ups: Offer incubators, mentorship, and finance guidance. “Entrepreneurship → Scale-ups → Innovation” will help startups grow and energize the wider economy 🤝🔬Promote Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration: Bridge business, engineering, sustainability, etc. Joint projects mirror how “Collaboration → Innovation/Skills/Infrastructure” drives broader outcomes. 📜 Short Courses on Policy Signals: Run workshops on navigating regulatory certainty/uncertainty. Helping leaders anticipate policy shifts reduces investment hesitation. 🌍 Champion Regional Engagement: Partner with local authorities & SMEs to tailor programs to regional needs. Reinforce “Regional Clusters → Growth → Inclusive Growth” and support levelling-up. ♻️ Embed Sustainability & Net-Zero Goals: Integrate clean energy case studies & net zero strategy in courses. Aligns with “Net-Zero → Clean Energy → Investment/Innovation,” preparing leaders for green transitions. 📊 Leverage Data & Analytics: Track outcomes of partnerships, alumni ventures, and skills placement. Measurable impact reinforces further investment and collaboration. 🌐 Build Innovation-Focused Alumni Networks : Create forums where grads in high-growth sectors share insights with current students. Sustains knowledge transfer and industry connections. #IndustrialStrategy #SystemsThinking #Innovation #EconomicGrowth #UK #CLD #Policy #Sustainability #Collaboration #Skills

💡 As scientists and engineers, here's something we often get wrong about innovation: We understand that innovation requires an interdisciplinary perspective, but we aren't interdisciplinary enough. For a long time, interdisciplinary to me meant things like: • physics + biology • engineering + psychology  • mechanical engineering + medicine • biomedical engineering + machine learning Technically, these are interdisciplinary, but they're still too science- and tech-centric. These alone are insufficient to develop solutions that can translate into positive societal impacts. And, in fact, they can lead to too much focus on gadgetry and technology for the sake of "innovation" rather than for the sake of the user, practicality, translatability, or scalability. Often as engineers and scientists we overlook (or underinvest in) factors related to: • financials • user needs • manufacturing This video game I encountered at the science center in Columbus (COSI) surprisingly did an amazing job introducing kids (and adults) to the innovation process! At first, the game seemed silly. Design a rubber ducky for kids' bath time. Of course, anyone can do this, right?? Well, not really. Or at least not well. You have to select different features to include. And you have to talk to colleagues from different backgrounds: • product design • engineering  • leadership • market research  • financial The best solutions are actually a bit counterintuitive. And if you don't balance the diverse perspectives well, then sales will plummet, or worse you may burn down the factory and go out of business. Sure, this game was about a rubber ducky, but I saw lots of parallels with developing #prosthetics, #exoskeletons, #exosuits, and other #wearabletech. TL/DR: What I thought was a kids game about a rubber ducky, turned out to be a masterclass on how to innovate. It really got me thinking about what it means to be interdisciplinary, and how you have to push beyond your comfort zone to truly innovate. Now, I kind of want to add this game to the engineering curriculum!

When I first started exploring neurotechnology, the idea of building a brain-computer interface seemed like science fiction. Could we detect electrical signals from the brain and decode them to allow someone to move an object with their mind? Most experts I spoke to said, “It’s impossible.” The first challenge wasn’t the technology itself—it was assembling a team. Traditional domain experts, bound by years of conventional thinking, often doubted it could work. So, we took a different approach. We brought together multidisciplinary minds: engineers, scientists, and creatives. They weren’t constrained by “the way things had always been done.” Those fresh perspectives ended up being just what we needed. They questioned assumptions and approached the problem from angles no one had considered. That unorthodox team became the foundation for everything we’ve built since. If you want to break new ground, start with a team willing to challenge the impossible. The rest will follow.

Beyond the Procedure: A Multidisciplinary Roadmap for Success in CAR-T, Haploidentical BMT, and Genomics CAR-T cell therapy and haploidentical bone marrow transplantation represent some of the most advanced frontiers in hematology. But success here is not defined by a single procedure—it is the product of long-term follow-up and seamless teamwork across specialties. To truly enhance outcomes and extend survival, one requires not just a hematologist, but a convergence of experts working together as one unit: • Hematopathologist – delivering timely and accurate diagnosis to guide critical treatment decisions. • Critical Care Hematologist – rounding alongside the primary physician with an early eye on complications in sick patients. • Infectious Disease Specialist – warding off infections, optimizing antibiotics, and upholding antimicrobial stewardship (AMS). • Geneticist – unraveling genomic complexities of hematologic malignancies and ushering in the era of true precision hematology. • Geriatric Hematologist – carefully balancing aggressiveness and tolerance in elderly and octogenarian patients. • Clinical Pharmacologist – managing drug–drug interactions and ensuring precise delivery of life-saving therapies. • Nutritionist – guiding patients’ diet during demanding procedures; often one of the most vital members of the team. • Physiotherapist – keeping patients mobile and preserving muscle strength during prolonged hospital stays. • Psychologist – protecting mental health, resilience, and hope throughout the journey. • Nursing - back bone of our ecosystem This is the power of a true hematology ecosystem: not just a hospital, but a multidisciplinary workplace of science, care, and compassion. Such centers may not always be next to your home, but they exist—and they are advancing hematology care for the world. We are at fortis gurugram Fortis Healthcare Shrinidhi Nathany Aastha Gupta Dr. Neha Rastogi Panda Nikhil M Kumar Rachit Agrawal Anindita Paul @shika Dr Vikas Dua SWATI BHAYANA @arun Ajey Maharaj Amit Pal Singh Raina Dr. Abhishek Sharma Yashpal Singh Rawat