Technical reports

Crucible Network for Research in Interdisciplinary Design

Alan F. Blackwell, David A. Good

August 2026, 102 pages

Abstract

Crucible is a research network that originated in the University of Cambridge in 2001, eventually becoming one of the largest research organisations dedicated to promoting rigorous research collaboration between technologists, and researchers in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AH&SS). The main focus of this collaboration was on design as a meeting point for widely differing research disciplines. Crucible activities included the establishment of new research programmes, training of researchers, input to policy bodies, and identification of suitable funding sources for research in interdisciplinary design. Crucible provided both a scientific and organisational framework for this research. Why the name? The crucible has always been a melting pot for valuable materials, the origin of new alloys, materials of innovation. The Crucible founders believed that the post-industrial crucible must be a place where knowledge and ideas are blended and tempered. This document has been created as an archive of the wiki that documented the activities of the Crucible network, previously maintained at https://wiki.cam.ac.uk/crucible The live wiki, which had been maintained on a MediaWiki server hosted by the University of Cambridge Information Systems division, became unavailable after the managed wiki service was closed in September 2025.

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BibTeX record

@TechReport{UCAM-CL-TR-1009,
  author =	 {Blackwell, Alan F. and Good, David A.},
  title = 	 {{Crucible Network for Research in Interdisciplinary Design}},
  year = 	 2026,
  month = 	 aug,
  url = 	 {https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-1009.pdf},
  institution =  {University of Cambridge, Computer Laboratory},
  doi = 	 {10.48456/tr-1009},
  number = 	 {UCAM-CL-TR-1009}
}