Home Rackham Institute for Interdisciplinary Problem Solving Rackham Institute for Interdisciplinary Problem Solving The complexity of our world and the challenges confronting us demand a novel strategy for problem solving, one that involves radical interdisciplinary collaboration and centers the human experience. Rackham’s Institute for Interdisciplinary Problem Solving convenes faculty from a wide range of disciplines across the University of Michigan to tackle some of our society’s most complex challenges. It incubates radical interdisciplinary collaboration by guiding faculty teams as they develop innovative approaches – informed by humanistic, social science, and STEM expertise – to grand-challenge problems. It also offers students the unique educational opportunity to apply their training to collaborative research projects led by multi-disciplinary faculty teams. Challenges Real-world problem solving valorizes technical solutions, while often ignoring crucial perspectives brought by humanistic and social science experts. STEM, humanities, and social science faculty do not share the same approaches to problems, questions, methods, or research outputs. The University of Michigan organizes itself in siloed schools and colleges that are divided into separate departments. This structure hinders the radical cross-disciplinary collaboration, research, and teaching necessary for tackling wicked problems. What Does Rackham Offer? Rackham’s mission is to support all graduate students and faculty, supporting every school and college at the University of Michigan. Rackham has expertise to guide faculty from “unallied” fields through the process of developing a shared understanding of a problem, learning how to communicate across different disciplinary norms, establishing trust, and designing collaborative research projects with real-world deliverables. Rackham’s Institute for Interdisciplinary Problem Solving typically incubates two projects at a time, on a four-year cycle. It convenes teams of 5-8 faculty from different disciplines across the University of Michigan around a grand-challenge problem, leads them through the development of collaborative research projects and teaching, identifies possible external funding sources, and spearheads the grant-writing process. A Typical 4-Year Cycle Might Include Year 1 Monthly seminar to grapple with a grand challenge problem, surface disciplinary assumptions, develop shared language and understanding, design research projects. Year 2 Monthly interdisciplinary research group meetings to report and provide feedback on early stage research; develop interdisciplinary courses for undergraduate or graduate students. Year 3 Monthly interdisciplinary research group meetings to report and provide feedback on ongoing research projects; teach interdisciplinary courses; invite select students to participate in research lab. Year 4 Monthly interdisciplinary research group meetings to report and provide feedback on ongoing research deliverables; teach interdisciplinary courses; invite select students to participate in research lab. Current Projects Current Projects Reparative Justice in Southeastern Michigan Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Equity
