Interdisciplinary approach in

any engineering project

BCE Group
Presentation
 What is Interdisciplinary approach?

Interdisciplinarity is a process of answering a

question, solving a problem, or addressing a topic that
is too broad or complex to be dealt with adequately by
a single discipline or profession. It draws upon
disciplinary viewpoint and integrates their insights
through construction of a more comprehensive
perspective

This type of approach has a broader scope

than traditional concepts.
 Interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary

● Currently, disciplines educate and equip ● If a problem simultaneously requires

students with the disciplinary knowledge
and skills they need to address and
solve problems in their specific
discipline-oriented areas of expertise
the resolution of mechanical, chemical
and telecom problems, a standard
approach would be to bring together
individuals with these skills to form a
multidisciplinary team.

● For complex, interdependent systems, however, the team would need to

integrate their disciplinary skills, knowledge, experience and insights,
and synthesise this into a shared body of knowledge that enables them to
gain a more in depth understanding of the problem at hand.
 Interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary
● While a multidisciplinary approach
involves people from different
disciplines collaborating together, an
interdisciplinary approach involves
an individual or team integrating and
synthesizing knowledge from across
a variety of disciplines.
● For example, In Biomedical
engineering, to design medical
equipments, an engineer has to have a
fairly thorough understanding of
anatomy, physiology, biology,
chemistry and similar subjects.
How to apply interdisciplinary
approach in engineering
People who wish to get into interdisciplinary
engineering start out studying subjects considered
fundamental to traditional engineering such as math,
chemistry and mechanics. This is supplemented with
courses in the liberal arts. Beyond this, it is up to the
interdisciplinary engineering student to fill his
curriculum.

Although IDE programs are highly flexible in this way,

students still are given broad guidelines for the number
of credits they must have from predetermined
categories of courses.
 Engineering branches for
interdisciplinary education

Environmental Mechatronics
Engineering engineering

Robotics and
Biotechnical
automation
engineering
engineering

Energy & power

Nano engineering
engineering
 Benefits of interdisciplinary
approach in engineering

● Authentic real life learning ● Brings more opportunities and

scope for students
● Increased critical thinking and
problem solving skills ● Student-eccentric

● Highly engaging ● Increased cognitive gain

● Highlights learner’s strengths ● Collaboration and

communication
 LIMITATIONS
● It can become the basis for narrowing rather than widening of
perspectives, it can have the effect of dissolving the very “discipline”
required for any serious scholarship or science.

● This can lead to budgetary restrictions, downgrading of departments,

and sometimes their dissolution in universities and research centres.

● Researchers from different disciplines also have

different methodologies and integrating research can be
challenging.

● It can get too meta-theoretical and not address real-life problems like
the research was supposed to. This defeats the original purpose of
exploring different perspectives to solve actual problems
 A BRANCH WHICH REQUIRES
KNOWLEDGE FROM DIFFERENT
TRADITIONAL BRANCHES TO IMPLEMENT
INTO ONE
 Conclusion
“ Difficult, but not Impossible ”

This suggests that implementing interdisciplinary approach is

difficult but not impossible. To date, there is no proven cookbook
approach to implementing interdisciplinary education within
engineering. However, the topic is currently receiving considerable
attention from engineering education researchers. This means that
increasingly, we are now able to identify evidence-based approaches
that can help us in our endeavours to implement interdisciplinarity
within engineering education.
THANK YOU
A Project by - Swaraj Metkar (122034)
Meet Shah (122059)
Vaibhav Ingle (122063)
Vedanti Dhende (122078)
Sarthak Patwari (122044)