Redesigning Universities for an Interdisciplinary Future

Join us in conversation with business historian Dr Claire Wright and Professor Carl Rhodes at UTS Business School as we explore: How we can redesign universities for an interdisciplinary future?

Interdisciplinary research is the key to addressing the challenges of our current moment. Climate change, global development, pandemics and so on are infuriatingly complex, and rarely respect disciplinary boundaries.

For many, interdisciplinary research is seen as a source of innovation and scientific breakthroughs, with discourse in Australia and elsewhere voicing the need for ‘job-ready’ graduates and ‘useful’ real-world research. Despite this, the policies and practices of universities continue to reinforce the dominance of disciplines. Everyone wants interdisciplinary research, but very few understand how it is produced, and even fewer actively implement policies to encourage it.

Join us as we examine the progress of economic history – one of the world’s oldest interdisciplinary fields – and outline the lessons this history provides to workers and managers seeking to develop robust interdisciplinary conversations.

We explore how we can radically rethink rankings and key performance indicators, the structure of degrees, and even the physical space of universities to encourage flexible, innovative, cross-disciplinary knowledge in the future.

The event kicks off at 5pm, and we encourage you to continue the conversation over refreshments after the event from 6pm.

About the speakers

Dr Claire E. F. Wright is a business historian at the UTS Business School. She is interested in the ways that interpersonal connections affect knowledge, markets, and business strategy, focussing particularly on Australian corporate networks and diversity in leadership. She is the author of Australian Economic History: Transformations of an Interdisciplinary Field (ANU Press, 2022), and is currently an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow (2022-24), working on the first history of Australia’s corporate women across the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Professor Carl Rhodes is Dean of the UTS Business School, and a Professor of Organisational Studies. Carl's research investigates the ethical and political dimensions of management and leadership and regularly contributes to the media with articles and commentary on issues related to ethics, politics, and management.

Carl’s most recent books include Woke Capitalism Democracy Under Threat in the Age of Corporate Righteousness, Disturbing Business Ethics: Emmanuel Levinas and the Politics of Organization and CEO Society: The Corporate Takeover of Everyday Life (with Peter Bloom).