Despite decades of calls for reform, higher education institutions continue to struggle with integrating new approaches into teaching and learning. In her master's thesis, Andrine Torgersen Wara examines why interdisciplinarity and artificial intelligence (AI), both widely recognized as important for addressing contemporary societal challenges, remain difficult to implement in higher education.
The thesis, The Persistence of Inertia: A Comparative Analysis of Barriers to the Integration of Interdisciplinarity and Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education 50 Years Apart, was supervised by Cato Alexander Bjørkli and Amanda Jean Bowerman. The study explores how barriers to change are discussed in higher education research and whether similar challenges emerge across different historical periods.
Drawing on a dataset of 6,943 research articles published in the journals Higher Education and Studies in Higher Education, Wara combined computational and qualitative research methods to investigate barriers to interdisciplinarity between 1972 and 1985 and barriers to AI integration between 2015 and 2025.
The findings show that organizational barriers are discussed more frequently than individual barriers in relation to both interdisciplinarity and AI. The study also identifies striking similarities between the challenges described across the two periods, suggesting that higher education institutions continue to be shaped by traditional structures and systemic inertia.
The results highlight a paradox within higher education: while universities are often expected to drive innovation and societal transformation, they can also be remarkably resistant to change. Understanding these persistent barriers may be essential for policymakers, educators, and institutions seeking to successfully implement interdisciplinary approaches and emerging technologies such as AI.