Guidelines

April 24-25, 2025

Call for Proposals

The School of Interdisciplinary Programs and Community Engagement (SIPCE) at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) invites proposals from students and faculty for its Fourth Annual Conference for Interdisciplinary Research.

The conference is scheduled for April 24-25, 2025.

Today’s complex challenges and opportunities require the integration of knowledge across and beyond disciplines. Current opportunities, such as advancements in artificial intelligence, innovations in the energy sector, and the development of new medical treatments, can benefit from diverse perspectives to better serve society. Inter- and transdisciplinary knowledge is also needed to understand and address today’s challenges, including the increase in extreme weather events, the prevalence of unsustainable food systems, the unabating eruption of conflicts and wars, and the widening wealth gap.

The development of sustainable, socially just, and ethical solutions that have a widespread, positive impact is not without its own challenges. Artists, scholars, and scientists working in multi- or interdisciplinary environments often face differing, and sometimes conflicting, expectations, motivations, goals, and practices. For example, researchers in multidisciplinary teams may not share the same ethical frameworks. They may have varying understandings of what constitutes ethical research—such as the treatment of research subjects, funding sources, handling of data—and may disagree on whether the proposed solutions are sustainable, socially just, and ethically sound.

The Fourth Annual Conference for Interdisciplinary Research at UTRGV seeks to foster critical inquiries, dialogue, and collaboration across disciplines on the complexities of interdisciplinary research. Emphasizing the development of ethical frameworks and promoting best practices in collaborative research, the conference will focus on identifying and addressing ethical issues, questions, and dilemmas encountered in interdisciplinary environments. Additionally, the conference will provide a platform to discuss the role of interdisciplinary research in addressing and offering solutions to today’s whicked challenges and problems.

The Conference Committee is particularly interested in proposals that engage with the conference theme by responding to one or more the following groups of questions:

• What are the primary ethical questions or challenges encountered by multi- and interdisciplinary teams? How can artists, scholars, and researchers balance conflicting ethical frameworks, expectations, and standards across different disciplines? How can ethical frameworks be developed to support interdisciplinary collaboration?
• When conducting interdisciplinary research that is community-engaged, who decides what is ethical, for whom, and on what grounds? How do power dynamics and hierarchies within transdisciplinary research teams influence ethical behavior and decision-making? What are effective ways and methods to prevent ethical misconduct in transdisciplinary environments?
• What is the importance of and relationship between individual, group, organizational, and institutional ethics? In which ways does ethics—ethical thinking, behavior, and decision-making—extend beyond the level of individual choice in areas such as health care access, economic and financial decision making, agricultural practices and food systems, or environmental pollution and degradation?
• How and to what extent can interdisciplinary research and solutions enhance ethical behavior, decision-making, and practices in society, including government, policymaking, and governance, business and entrepreneurship, health and medical care?
• What role should and can higher education play in the critical analysis, dissemination, or promotion of ethics? What role can and should different disciplines play in the teaching of ethics to new generations of students faced with new challenges related to issues such as artificial intelligence, economic and entrepreneurial competition, national security or finite natural resources?

The conference organizers invite proposals for individual papers, panels, and poster presentations from students, faculty, and independent scholars who work in inter- or multidisciplinary teams or whose research integrates epistemologies, theories, and methodologies from different disciplines.

Students are encouraged to present work derived from individual research projects, thesis work, and course-based or lab-based projects.

Proposals must be submitted by Friday, December 30, 2024 (11:59pm). To submit your proposal, please complete the Submission Form.

Submitters will be notified of their acceptance status by February 15, 2025. Submissions will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

1. Does the proposal respond to the conference theme and address one or more of the guiding questions?
2. Does the proposal clearly state the topic, focus, and argument of the poster, paper, or panel?
3. Is the focus of the proposed poster, paper, or panel clearly interdisciplinary or does it focus on multi-, trans-, or interdisciplinary collaboration?

The conference will be held at the Region One Education Service Center, next to UTRGV’s Edinburg campus.

Free parking is available at the conference venue.

Please note that no travel funding is available. Participants are responsible for covering their own travel and lodging expenses. For information about nearby airports as well as the conference hotel, please visit the Conference Venue and Hotel information page.

• Friederike Bruehoefener (Conference Program Chair)
• Andres Amado (UTRGV School of Music)
• Nazanin M. Heydarian (UTRGV School of Social Work)
• Maria Leonard (UTRGV Director of Social Impact and Sustainability, Vacker College of Business and Entrepreneurship)
• Fatemeh (Noosheen) Nazari (UTRGV Department of Civil Engineering)
• Rommel Johnson (UTRGV School of Rehabilitation Services and Counseling)
• Paul Jorgensen (UTRGV School of Interdisciplinary Programs & Community Engagement)
• Hafizur Rahman (UTRGV School of Podiatric Medicine)
• Melisa Vivanco (UTRGV Department of Philosophy)

For questions regarding the conference, please email: friederike.bruehoefener@utrgv.edu