Double insider Pelle Boers studies conditions for research across disciplines

In the great INTERACT programme of STEM PhD students, Pelle Boers is the odd one out.

While his colleagues in the programme conduct interdisciplinary research on health, with a particular focus on cancer and neurological diseases, Pelle studies them – or rather: he studies how the interdisciplinary STEM research is carried out. Where the institutional structures support work between disciplines – and where they don’t.

“Interdisciplinary research is often put forward as critical for so many of the major challenges we are trying to solve today. But it is also incredibly difficult in practice,” says Pelle Boers.

“To improve the conditions for interdisciplinary research, it is essential that we have a clear understanding of how it is conducted. And I hope this project can provide that.”

Pelle started in September 2025 as one of 18 PhD students in the INTERACT programme, which is supported by the Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie programme. In total, INTERACT will recruit 66 talented fellows over three calls during 2025-2027 – all of them spanning multiple scientific disciplines.

Building trust

Being a part of the programme he is studying, Pelle has the role of a double insider.

“It is a strange position, and it is an interesting challenge,” he says.

“I am not a STEM researcher. I don’t really know anything about laboratories, neuroscience and cancer – unlike all my fellow students in the programme. In that way, I stand out a bit, socially as well.”

Additionally, Pelle Boers has to observe his fellow fellows while they carry out their research in the complex intersection between different fields. And that can be challenging.

“Of course, it has required that we build some trust. It was important for me to say that I was not there to report back to the EU or their supervisors about what I saw,” Pelle explains.

“None of the INTERACT fellows has experience with being observed during work, but most of them are surprisingly comfortable with it. People have individual boundaries, and part of my task is navigating them.”

A new language

After more than half a year in INTERACT, Pelle Boers has, despite the academic differences, settled well into the group of PhD students. And he has experienced up close some of the day-to-day challenges that can hinder interdisciplinary research.

“Every project comes with challenges that are specific to it. But we also see common patterns,” says Pelle Boers.

“As an interdisciplinary PhD student, you have to learn a new language. You may have one field, for example molecular biology, but now you also have to be able to speak organic chemistry. You need that in order to work across two fields with different systems and cultures.”

Being the project manager of your own PhD project is always a task, but it becomes greater in interdisciplinary research because there are more parts that need to fit together. For example, you have to be good at balancing and often also connecting the different perspectives you get from supervisors from different disciplines.

It is in these different pitfalls that Pelle Boers sees potential in tools that can support interdisciplinary projects – something that will, for example, be developed in the SPINE research project, where Pelle is an affiliated researcher.

Interdisciplinary optimism

The INTERACT programme aims to break down disciplinary silos and equip fellows with both discipline-specific expertise and interdisciplinary knowledge with the potential for solving complex challenges in health.

And although the list of challenges is long, Pelle Boers is optimistic about interdisciplinary research:

“For laboratory leaders and other researchers there is genuine support for these projects because they see the value in going beyond their own field of research in trying to tackle these scientific challenges,” says Pelle Boers.

“For the student, it is a unique and interesting PhD position where you do not have to choose between the fields you are interested in. It creates enthusiastic candidates who are enormously motivated to make an impact.”