The arts and sciences have evolved primarily through specialization and broadening of scope. Stepping outside of one’s established discipline, however, involves a danger of "shallowness," even if the primary challenge was a "deep" integration problem. All too often, current ways of defining academic disciplines and fields of research fail to do justice to new approaches—a problem this volume tackles as it debates the possible futures of scholarship and academia.

P.A.J. Tindemans is the president of Global Knowledge Strategies & Partnerships of the Dutch Society of Sciences and Arts (OCW). A.A.Verrijn-Stuart is an emeritus professor of information science at the University of Leiden. R.P.W. Visser is a professor of natural science at the University of Leiden.