Beyond Five-Legged Sheep: Empirically Grounded Lessons for PhD Candidates and Supervisors to Navigate Challenges in Inter- and Transdisciplinary PhD Trajectories
This study empirically identifies five key themes and distills 18 actionable lessons to help PhD candidates and supervisors navigate the shared challenges of inter- and transdisciplinary research, emphasizing the need for systemic support to move beyond unrealistic expectations of "five-legged sheep" professionals.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
Imagine you are trying to bake a cake. In a traditional PhD, you are baking a chocolate cake. You have one recipe, one set of ingredients, and one expert baker (your supervisor) to guide you. You know exactly what the final product should look like.
Now, imagine an Inter- and Transdisciplinary (ITD) PhD. This is like trying to bake a cake that is also a car, a painting, and a community garden all at once. You need to mix chocolate with engine oil, paint, and soil. You have to talk to chefs, mechanics, artists, and farmers. And instead of one baker, you have a whole team of experts who all speak different languages and have different ideas of what a "good cake" looks like.
This paper, titled "Beyond Five-Legged Sheep," explores what it's actually like to try to bake this impossible cake. The researchers interviewed PhD students and their supervisors in two big projects: one about managing wildfires (PyroLife) and one about humans living with large wild animals (WildlifeNL).
Here is the simple breakdown of what they found, using the paper's own metaphors and lessons.
The Main Metaphor: The "Five-Legged Sheep"
The biggest takeaway is that everyone involved feels like they are being asked to be a "Five-Legged Sheep" (or a unicorn).
In the real world, sheep have four legs. A five-legged sheep is a myth. It represents an impossible standard. The paper argues that PhD students and their supervisors are both being expected to be this mythical creature. They are expected to be:
- Brilliant scientists.
- Master communicators who can talk to anyone.
- Experts in multiple fields at once.
- Great at managing people and politics.
- Flexible enough to handle total chaos.
The paper says, "Hey, stop expecting people to be magic creatures. Let's talk about how to survive this."
The 5 Big Challenges (and How to Handle Them)
The researchers found five main areas where things get tricky. Here is how they explain them:
1. The "Triple Motivation" (Why are you doing this?)
The Problem: In a normal PhD, you might just want to get a job or write a cool paper. In an ITD PhD, students are motivated by three things at once:
- They love the specific topic (e.g., fire or animals).
- They love working with other people (scientists, farmers, government).
- They want to make a real difference in the world, not just in a library.
The Lesson:
- For Students: Make sure your job matches all three of these. If you only care about the science but hate the people part, you will burn out.
- For Supervisors: When hiring, don't just look at grades. Look for people who are genuinely excited about the whole messy picture, not just the science part. Also, make sure you actually value the non-science work (like community meetings) so students don't feel like they are wasting their time.
2. Juggling Expectations (The Tug-of-War)
The Problem: Students are pulled in many directions. They have to write a thesis, attend 50 meetings, talk to stakeholders, and learn new skills. It feels like they are being asked to do everything, all at once.
- The Trap: Students often feel they are responsible for "gluing" all the different experts together.
- The Reality: The supervisors should be the ones gluing the team together, not the student.
The Lesson:
- For Students: You need to pick a focus. You can't do everything.
- For Supervisors: You have to help the student say "no" to some things. Don't make the student the project manager for the whole team. Protect their time so they can actually do their research.
3. The "Scattered Sense of Belonging" (Where is home?)
The Problem: In a normal PhD, you belong to one department and one lab. In an ITD PhD, you belong to a little bit of everything, but maybe none of them fully. You might feel like you don't fit in with the scientists, but you also don't fit in with the farmers. You feel a bit lost and lonely.
The Lesson:
- For Supervisors: Create a "home" for the student. Invite them to events, introduce them to people, and make sure they have a physical space to hang out.
- For Students: You have to build your own "furniture" in that home. Find other students who are doing the same weird, mixed-up PhD. They are the only ones who truly understand your struggle.
4. Commitment to Learning (The Supervisors Must Learn Too)
The Problem: Everyone thinks the student is the only one learning. But the supervisors are learning too! They are learning how to work with people from totally different fields.
- The Danger: If the supervisors argue with each other, the student gets stuck in the middle, acting like a referee. This is unfair and stressful.
The Lesson:
- For Supervisors: You are a team. You need to talk to each other and figure out your differences before you talk to the student. Don't make the student manage your disagreements.
- For Students: Don't become the "supervisor of your supervisors." It's not your job to fix their arguments.
5. Tolerating Unpredictability (The Fog)
The Problem: A normal PhD has a clear path. An ITD PhD is like driving in thick fog. The research direction changes because the weather changes, or the government changes its mind, or a new partner joins.
- The Feeling: It feels disorienting and scary.
The Lesson:
- For Students: Accept that you will feel lost sometimes. It's part of the process.
- For Supervisors: Be a human, not just a boss. Build a relationship where the student feels safe to say, "I'm confused." Check in on them often to see what they need right now, not what they needed six months ago.
The Bottom Line
The paper concludes that we cannot just throw PhD students into these complex projects and expect them to be superheroes.
- It's a Shared Burden: Both the student and the supervisor are being asked to be "five-legged sheep."
- The Fix: We need to stop expecting perfection. We need to acknowledge that this work is hard, messy, and unpredictable.
- The Goal: By using these lessons, we can turn the "impossible" into a manageable challenge, helping students and supervisors navigate the fog together without losing their minds.
The authors created some fun drawings (visuals) of these sheep to help people remember these lessons, but the core message is simple: Be kind, be clear, and remember that no one is actually a five-legged sheep.
Drowning in papers in your field?
Get daily digests of the most novel papers matching your research keywords — with technical summaries, in your language.