[3] Educational institutions originally used the term "discipline" to catalog and archive the new and expanding body of information produced by the scholarly community.
Many academic disciplines designed as preparation for careers and professions, such as nursing, hospitality management, and corrections, also emerged in the universities.
Finally, interdisciplinary scientific fields of study such as biochemistry and geophysics gained prominence as their contribution to knowledge became widely recognized.
[citation needed] As the twentieth century approached, these designations were gradually adopted by other countries and became the accepted conventional subjects.
[citation needed] Prior to the twentieth century, categories were broad and general, which was expected due to the lack of interest in science at the time.
Foucault asserts that academic disciplines originate from the same social movements and mechanisms of control that established the modern prison and penal system in eighteenth-century France, and that this fact reveals essential aspects they continue to have in common: "The disciplines characterize, classify, specialize; they distribute along a scale, around a norm, hierarchize individuals in relation to one another and, if necessary, disqualify and invalidate."
(Foucault, 1975/1979, p. 223)[7] Communities of academic disciplines can be found outside academia within corporations, government agencies, and independent organizations, where they take the form of associations of professionals with common interests and specific knowledge.
A newly developing nation will likely prioritize government, political matters and engineering over those of the humanities, arts and social sciences.
If challenges of a particular type need to be repeatedly addressed so that each one can be properly decomposed, a multidisciplinary community can be exceptionally efficient and effective.
One example of this scenario is the shift from the approach of focusing on sensory awareness of the whole, "an attention to the 'total field'", a "sense of the whole pattern, of form and function as a unity", an "integral idea of structure and configuration".
The political dimensions of forming new multidisciplinary partnerships to solve the so-called societal Grand Challenges were presented in the Innovation Union and in the European Framework Programme, the Horizon 2020 operational overlay.
Innovation across academic disciplines is considered the pivotal foresight of the creation of new products, systems, and processes for the benefit of all societies' growth and wellbeing.
Regional examples such as Biopeople and industry-academia initiatives in translational medicine such as SHARE.ku.dk in Denmark provide evidence of the successful endeavour of multidisciplinary innovation and facilitation of the paradigm shift.