The Exeter Science Exchange:trading ideas to promote multi-disciplinary collaboration

思想的产生和交流是成功的学术研究所必需的两个重要组成部分-很难想象一个没有另一个！虽然学术管理传统上是组织在研究主题或部门线，这显然是一个有效的方式，确保有效的交流思想的研究小组内有一个共同的议程，它往往形成了一个障碍，真正新颖的研究思路，可能来自“左场”的组合相当不同的学科发展。即使在不同的研究领域发现了这些潜在的突破性互补性，也往往很难找到初始资金来推动其发展，研究人员往往会退回到风险较小但熟悉的研究领域。一个连贯和有针对性的机构活动计划，旨在支持跨越传统学科界限的新的和创新的研究合作。这些合作将连接在工程和物理科学研究（EPS）与生命和环境科学（LES）和人文，艺术和社会科学（HASS）在埃克塞特优秀的研究迅速扩大的研究基地。就像证券交易所是一个中央的，认可的和受监管的场所，用于交易公司股票和股份以获取利润，因此ESE将包括一个中央的，认可的和有组织的物理和虚拟空间，用于在LES - LES - HASS频谱上进行“思想交易”，以获得知识利润和社会影响。交流将使跨学科群体共同居住在同一个真实的空间（在校园）不时和同一个虚拟空间的所有时间允许创建共享的身份，并带来跨学科边界的理解的新水平。它还将为知识管理和分享最佳做法提供一个平台。前三（沟通，创新和政策）旨在激发跨关键边界领域的兴趣和参与，第四股（发展）旨在提供一种机制，将这些最有前途的想法发展到一个可以得到更传统机制支持的水平（补助金申请，联合博士生）。它将为所有人提供一个思想交流的论坛，并具有尽可能广泛的职权范围，将气候建模和材料科学，海洋历史和考古学等各种主题联系起来。我们最初的重点将是促进基于机构科学战略主题的合作：气候变化和可持续的未来，系统生物学，太阳系外行星和功能材料，但我们将鼓励埃克塞特的研究人员广泛参与，并将致力于发展和扩大大学内现有的多学科研究。我们的目标是利用大学内广泛的高级学者的专业知识，他们将协助将交易所的重点放在有前途的新兴领域，并评估泵启动资金的申请。

The generation and exchange of ideas are two vital components necessary for successful academic research - it is hard to imagine one without the other! While academic management is traditionally organised on research thematic or departmental lines, and this is clearly an efficient way of ensuring effective exchange of ideas within research groups with a common agenda, it often forms a barrier to development of really novel research ideas that may come from 'left field' combinations of quite different disciplines. Even when these potentially ground-breaking complementarities are identified in different research areas, it is often hard to find the initial funding to pump-prime its development, and researchers will tend to fall back to less risky but familar areas of research endeavour.This proposal is to set up the Exeter Science Exchange (ESE), a coherent and directed institutional programme of activities designed to support new and innovative research collaborations across traditional discipline boundaries. These collaborations will link the rapidly expanding research base in Engineering and Physical Sciences research (EPS) with excellent research in both Life and Environmental Sciences (LES) and the humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) at Exeter. In the same way as a stock exchange is a central, recognised and regulated venue for the trading of company stocks and shares for profit, so the ESE will consist of a central, recognised and organised physical and virtual space for the 'trading of ideas' across the LES - LES - HASS spectrum for intellectual profit and societal impact. The Exchange will enable interdisciplinary groups to co-habit the same real space (on campus) from time-to-time and the same virtual space all the time allowing the creation of shared identities and bringing about a new level of understanding across discipline boundaries. It will also provide a platform for knowledge management and the sharing of best practice.The Exchange will offer four linked strands of activity; the first three (communication, innovation and policy) are aimed at sparking interest and engagement across crucial boundaries areas, and the fourth strand (development) is aimed at providing a mechanism to develop the most promising of these ideas up to a level that they can be supported by more traditional mechanisms (grant applications, joint PhD students). It will provide a forum for ideas trading that will be available to all and has as wide a remit as possible, making connections between topics as diverse as climate modelling and materials science to maritime history and archaeology.Our initial focus will be on fostering collaboration based on institutional Science Strategy topics: Climate change and sustainable futures, systems biology, extrasolar planets and functional materials, however we will encourage engagement of a very wide range of researchers at Exeter, and will aim to develop and widen existing multi-disciplinary research within the University. We aim to draw on the expertise of a wide range of senior academics across the university who will assist in focusing the Exchange towards promising emerging areas, and in evaluating applications for pump-priming funding.