UMII Mission Statement
The mission of the University of Minnesota Interdisciplinary Informatics (UMII) is to further research innovation, discovery and learning in the interdisciplinary application of informatics to study complex problems or systems.
The National Academies Committee on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research defines interdisciplinary research as follow:
"Interdisciplinary research (IDR) is a mode of research by teams or individuals that integrates information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, concepts, and/or theories from two or more disciplines or bodies of specialized knowledge to advance fundamental understanding or to solve problems whose solutions are beyond the scope of a single discipline or field of research practice." (1)
The UMII goals are:
• To facilitate the development of an informatics community that will support the University strategic plan to attract, retain and promote investigators that are working at the frontier of interdisciplinary research using computation and quantitative methods.
• To develop a strong informatics infrastructure which by meeting and anticipating the researcher’s needs improves the University readiness in the area of interdisciplinary research and the application of computational thinking to research.
The UMII supports its mission by establishing resources, incentives and training for University investigators planning to engage in interdisciplinary research and teaching efforts that rely or integrate informatics methodologies or tools. These resources include:
• Graduate School post-doctoral fellowships
• Support for hiring of Interdisciplinary and computational faculty
1.Committee on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research, Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy (2004). Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research. National Academies. Washington: National Academy Press (online report).