The ABC (Ability, Basic Concepts, Challenges and Risks) of Inter-Disciplinary Research

The growth of scientific and technical knowledge has prompted scientists, engineers, social scientists, and humanists to join in addressing complex problems that must be attacked simultaneously with deep knowledge from different perspectives - inter-disciplinary research. Inter-disciplinary research areas like Biomedical Informatics, Bioinformatics, Bioengineering, Nano-biotechnology, Biometric, Robotics, Biophysical chemistry has a lot to offer in terms of opportunities and excitement. Researchers get a wide spectrum of job opportunity as well as funding schemes. Moreover, they get a very good insight in applied aspects of basic sciences. Great reward often comes with challenges and inter-disciplinary research is not an exception. The common challenges and issues faced by inter-disciplinary scientists are: understanding the concepts underlying a discipline other than your own; the language barrier; the lack of expertise in the partner discipline; and the conflicts of interest which poses a great risk on time, budget, schedule and success of research work. Therefore, researcher and supervisor should analyze possible challenges, issues, and risks associated with inter-disciplinary research before any commitment. This paper discusses opportunities, challenges, and risk related with inter-disciplinary research.