Crossover Research: Exploring a Collaborative Mode of Integration

Integrative research brings disciplines together in new endeavours. Systems biology currently emerges through the integrative research activity of natural science disciplines. Our project, Crossover Research, widens this scope of integration by including philosophy. This chapter discusses our motivation for widening the disciplinary palette and reflects on conditions for such an extension to be productive based on our initial experiences. The functional integration of participating disciplines is a general challenge for systems biology. We suggest that philosophy (or any socio-humanist discipline) can be integrated on equal terms as any other contributing field of systems biology. The challenge of inte-grating philosophical research need not be of a different kind.The rationale for integrating socio-humanist disciplines expressed in dominant existing approaches is biased towards the professional interests of the humanist. We argue the case by discussing the approaches of CTA and RTTA. We then articulate how our own attempts at conjoined, “crossover” research may meet professional motivations of all participants. In addition to CTA and RTTA, our ap-proach is partly informed by the Human Practices approach, as well as by experi-ences of functional integration of participating research disciplines in systems biol-ogy in general.In our ongoing project, Crossover Research, we found a basis for re-search integration within zones of overlapping professional interests. The research integration of socio-humanist fields in particular finds its rationale in the zones where epistemic and ethico-political problems and concerns intersect and cross-over.