Interdisciplinary research on climate change: Trends in doctoral dissertation topics during the past 30 years

Background/Question/Methods   Over recent decades, global environmental change has become one the most challenging issues confronting human societies. Addressing complex and urgent problems such as biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, and climate change may require major shifts in our policies, institutions, economic systems and social values, attitudes, and behaviors, but they also require key shifts in the way we conduct science. In particular, more integrated, interdisciplinary research focusing on coupled human and natural systems is vital. Yet, at most universities, doctoral programs remain highly disciplinary, providing little support for research or training that bridges the natural/social-science divide. In fact, strong cultural and institutional obstacles often deter or preclude doctoral students from conducting such research. The Dissertations Initiative for the Advancement of Climate Change Research (DISCCRS) is an NSF-funded interdisciplinary training program targeted at recent Ph.D. graduates that provides educational, networking, and career-development opportunities to young climate change scholars interested in conducting interdisciplinary research. The network has grown to over 1000 participants during recent years, including hundreds of biologists and ecologists, and all of whom have submitted their dissertation abstracts to a publicly-available online database (www.disccrs.org).

Results/Conclusions   Here we report results from an analysis of DISCCRS participant's dissertation topics, focusing on ecologists in particular. We compare the results with those from an analysis of topics from all doctoral researchers studying climate change based on data from the ProQuest dissertation abstract database. Research on climate change has risen dramatically over the past 3 decades, with some evidence for increasing interdisciplinary approaches.