Editorial – by António Rochette Cordeiro

As part of the celebration of the 25th anniversary of CEIS20 and the CEIS20 Colloquium - 25 years: history, perspectives and practices in interdisciplinarity, António Rochette Cordeiro, former Scientific Coordinator of CEIS20, signs the February Editorial. This statement continues a cycle of editorials on the theme of interdisciplinarity at the Centre signed by its former Scientific Coordinators.

Editorial by António Rochette Cordeiro

The role of Scientific Coordinator of CEIS20, which began in 2016, forced me to take on the challenge of expanding the role of interdisciplinarity in a research centre that, since its inception, has operated very much along disciplinary lines, or, as António Pedro Pita puts it, in "specialised thematic areas". The various research groups associated with specific areas essentially reflected multidisciplinary, and only rarely interdisciplinary, scientific production. Similarly, the journal, the journal “Estudos do Século XX”, organised in thematic issues by the research groups, and the PhD programme in Contemporary Studies ended up reflecting the same dynamic. Indeed, this observation was reflected in the reports of the various evaluation panels, which clearly stated that there were no major relationships between the different groups. In this context, and very much because of what had led me to join CEIS20 - as a result of my academic training in a science where an integrative and holistic vision is a hallmark - this motivation became a cornerstone for the challenges of the Centre's strategic vision for the coming years.

The previous scientific coordination had already tried to establish an interdisciplinary line of research for the future at the Centre, following this interpretation of the lack of interconnectedness between the research groups. This was based on two research programmes defined in 2013: “Two centuries of liberalism, 1820-2020: forms of state, social movements, instruments of subjectivation” and “Mobilities: individuals and ideas between spaces”.

However, five years later, having realised that little had changed, a new mobilisation strategy was defined, widely discussed within CEIS20, which, while maintaining the two previous research groups, sought to increase research relations between researchers from the different thematic areas that were part of CEIS20 through interdisciplinary axes – “Inequalities, Borders and Mobilities”; “Media and Society in the Post-Digital Age”; “Democracy, the Present and the Memory of Dictatorships”; and “Theory in the Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Social Technologies”. In this context, “Research Tools” translated into interdisciplinary dialogues such as Momento CEIS20 (CEIS20 – Time for Reflection), Projetos em Diálogo (Projects in Dialogue), Young Researchers’ Meeting, Oficina de Ideias – should be a catalyst in the much-needed relation between Groups and their researchers. The promotion of scientific relations between the fields of knowledge that made up the Centre became the primary objective (something that had already been tried before), in order to enable the reorganisation of the disciplinary fields.

In the first phase, the aim was to broaden the fields of knowledge by implementing the network of international partnerships, which led to an increase in the number of participants in the PhD programme in Contemporary Studies. This also led to the supervision of different dissertations on interdisciplinary topics by researchers from different fields, as well as the implementation of international interdisciplinary projects.

Another attempt in the quest to promote interdisciplinary studies was the celebration of the Centre's 20th anniversary at the end of 2018, and the challenge given to CEIS20 researchers to organise a series of congresses, seminars and international meetings in 10 days (11 events in total), culminating in the International Congress “Border Crossings. Territories and Frontiers in Research”. Although some of the events maintained a disciplinary logic, others were already following the intended vision, resulting in several papers that already showed an evolution of the interdisciplinary thinking that CEIS20 had been calling for.

However, one fact was clear at the time: research needs resources, which the CEIS20 funding did not provide. The decision to offer researchers resources for the next evaluation period was seen as contradictory, as it indirectly implied an evaluation of the Centre that was not in line with the wishes of its managers and researchers. However, the assumption that 'sometimes you have to take one step back to take two steps forward' became a difficult but conscious one. The future of CEIS20 research demanded it and, as we know, a significant financial boost was obtained for the new period of activity.

We will soon know whether the choices made by CEIS20 and its researchers were the best ones. I'm sure that the evaluation will reflect the desired outcome, although I'm aware that the difficult choices made could have led to an even greater increase in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research.

After the period of sabbatical leave that I forced myself to take, during which I reflected on the growing need for interdisciplinary (and also transdisciplinary) research at CEIS20, a brief comment seems in order. Although I'm deliberately not commenting on the idea of what the Centre's line of action will be, I can't help but mention that the maturity a researcher needs for this approach requires a deepening of the original disciplinary research itself, thus making it possible to promote the enrichment of interdisciplinary practices.

CEIS20, 27 February 2024

António Rochette Cordeiro

(Assistant Professor at the University of Coimbra. Integrated Researcher at CEIS20)