After the first preview of the IIS model of interdisciplinary research, we will now zoom in on the different phases and guide you through the steps of the model in more detail. In any research project, the first task at hand is to narrow down the problem or topic to a research question that can be answered in the time available. Especially in interdisciplinary research this can be a challenging step as it always involves a complex problem (see chapter 5), which can (and should be) be studied from multiple perspectives or disciplines. Here, we will describe the first two steps of our interdisciplinary research model (figure 11). How to narrow down a complex problem to a preliminary research question that is feasible in both time and scale is the central topic of this chapter.

Considerations:

• □ Consider all relevant disciplines: which 3 to 4 disciplines are most relevant?

• □ What are the dominant perspectives of those disciplines on the problem or area of interest?

Step 1 Identify problem or topic

Finding a topic is not always easy. An additional challenge in the case of student projects is to find a problem that can be addressed by the available disciplinary expertise in the research team (see box 5 for an exercise that you can use when trying to find a shared topic of interest). But it is equally important to find something that triggers your academic curiosity.

Once you have decided on a topic or a problem that you want to focus on in your project, you need to set a starting point for your research. The answers to the following questions can be a good starting point for your initial literature research, and they can help to clarify the context of your topic of research.