The Future of Interdisciplinary in International Relations

A conference organized by the Midlands Regional IR Network
Hosted by the Department of Political Science and International Studies
University of Birmingham, Tuesday 15th September 2009.

Call for papers:
The study of International Relations (IR) has often borrowed from, and built upon, the work produced in diverse academic disciplines. These range from philosophy to economics, sociology to criminology, geography to cultural studies, and from international law to the philosophy of science. Despite the significant debt that the development of IR as a field of study in its own right owes to interdisciplinary scholarship, debates over the future development of interdisciplinarity in IR are too often treated as a marginal concern. In addition, while many IR scholars borrow from the research insights of other disciplines, disciplinary boundaries such as the organizational structures of universities and the specialization of academic journals and publishers often inhibit rather than facilitate dialogue between scholars and students working in similar research areas.
This one-day conference aims to bring together scholars working on contemporary issues in International Relations from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds to discuss the future of interdisciplinarity in the study of International Relations.

The organizers invite potential participants to submit one of the following two types of proposals:
1. Individual conference paper proposals that directly address issues related to interdisciplinary scholarship in IR. The organizers are especially interested in papers that draw on the wide pool of relevant scholarship from outside the traditional 'IR canon', but which also seek to address the challenges involved with producing interdisciplinary scholarship that attempts to engage with an often sceptical 'mainstream' IR audience.

2. Research project proposals that will contribute to - and draw on - interdisciplinary scholarship in IR. This may include PhD research proposals, post-doctoral research proposals, or academic research grant proposals, and may be completed project designs that have already been submitted or works-in-progress. Successful proposals will be presented in a similar manner to conference papers, but with the specific aim of strengthening scholarly dialogue and knowledge exchange over interdisciplinary project design, access to funding for interdisciplinary research projects, and how to publish interdisciplinary research outputs.
Additional information:

The deadline for paper proposals and research project proposals is 1 June 2009. Successful conference applicants will be notified by e-mail by 30 June 2009. Further additional information, including the conference programme, will be published on the conference website in July 2009.
Conference organizers:
Dr. André Broome
a.broome@bham.ac.uk <mailto:a.broome@bham.ac.uk>
Dr. Nicola Smith
n.j.smith.1@bham.ac.uk <mailto:n.j.smith.1@bham.ac.uk>
Dr Annika Bergman-Rosamond
abr3@leicester.ac.uk <mailto:abr3@leicester.ac.uk>