The infrastructure of interdisciplinarity for EU research: institutional configurations and collaborative practices for the SSH disciplines

From the introduction of Horizon 2020, interdisciplinarityand the integration of social sciences and humanities (SSH)have become key concerns in EU-funded research. Framedas a ‘cross-cutting issue,’ SSH integration has been shapedby policy-driven priorities that define its role and influence.Drawing on qualitative analysis of documents, interviews,and ethnographic fieldwork, we use an STS infrastructurelens to link the historical development of interdisciplinarityin EU Framework Programmes (FPs) to prevailing SSHknowledge production practices in Horizon 2020collaborations. We argue that a master narrative,embedded in grant agreements as boundary objects,promotes a specific vision of interdisciplinarity thatprivileges certain forms of participation while limitingwhich kinds of SSH knowledge become legitimate withinEU research. Our analysis shows how the persistent gapbetween the ambition for interdisciplinarity and itspractical realization is underpinned by the politically ladenhistories embedded in research infrastructure. This gap isfurther reinforced by the ways this infrastructure mediatesepistemic hierarchies, collaborative practices, andintegrative outcomes in interdisciplinary research.