Scientific research across and beyond disciplines

Contemporary research is increasingly characterized by two contrasting trends . One is a process of increasing and continuous specialization, which requires scientists to attain a congruent degree of expertise in a particular area of research. This trend is reflected in the proliferation of new scientific disciplines, and their further division into subfields. The other trend, which developed over the past decades, is increasing cooperation not only at an intradisciplinary level, but also across and beyond disciplines: that is, multi-, interand trans-disciplinary research. The aim is to bring together scientists with different expertise and resources, with the possibility of cross-fertilizing each other and to develop new, synthetic views.