Knowledge integration remains, paradoxically, both a key methodology and an elusive mystery in crossdisciplinary work such as interdisciplinary studies, team science, and transdisciplinary research. Many case studies have described compound events and iterations leading to remarkable integrative achievements. Even though a wealth of work on…

Despite widespread agreement on the value of interdisciplinarity, significant debate persists about its fundamental nature. We propose a framework to address this disagreement by drawing on ideas from philosophy of biology, particularly the work of Karola Stotz and Paul Griffiths (e.g., 2004). Our "conceptual ecological" approach…

Scientific disciplines have been primary units of epistemic and institutional differentiation in modern research systems, encompassing the specialization of scientists, disciplinary communication systems, discipline-oriented work organization, and discipline-aligned systems of quality control and rewards. In its contemporary outline, the…

Although today the importance of interdisciplinarity is widely recognized and the associated philosophical reflection is consolidating into an autonomous field of research, there is still no adequate understanding of what interdisciplinary projects consist of, nor are there clear agreements on how to execute them. Here we propose that the concept…

Which attitudes, mindsets, and personal qualities do scholars deem crucial for inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) research? And how has this changed over time? In this article, we answer these questions by looking at foundational texts on inter- and transdisciplinarity published between the 1970s and the early 2000s. We show that virtues such as…

Contrary to today's hype, interdisciplinarity--and its cognate transdisciplinarity--was once a synonym of a critical-reflexive attitude towards knowledge production and the technoscientific progress, including the mindset, power and authority of science. The role of the entire academic system in causing the environmental crisis and the…

In this paper, we analyse what interdisciplinary integration looks like in a research project aimed at developing Probo, a social robot that can be used as an interface by therapists working with autistic children. With our analysis, we contribute to a piecemeal approach to theorizing about integration, which is sensitive to the diversity of goals…

The research mode that has gained prominence under the designation "transdisciplinary research" (TDR) has given rise to a multitude of definitions and critiques. While some posit that this research mode enables the sciences to address the mounting societal expectations to confront and potentially resolve significant societal challenges,…

Inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) research is essentially integrating a pluralism of perspectives to a more comprehensive solution or insight into the problem. Yet this article argues that with an "imperative of integration," ITD approaches risk epistemic injustice or excluding some perspectives, for example, when those of non-academic…

Interdisciplinarity (ID) and transdisciplinarity (TD)--in their definitions and practical characteristics--encapsulate the tensions, demands, and transformations that scientific research is currently undergoing in response to the complexity of scientific problems across various domains. This article aims to contribute to the discussion on how ID…

This article addresses the ethical and epistemological challenges of interdisciplinary efforts through the interactional lens of proximity. How can we ensure interdisciplinarity in unequal institutional, disciplinary, and geopolitical environments? What does it mean to do research when epistemological frameworks clash between fields and sectors?…

Study abroad and for-credit internships are both high-impact educational practices. Yet even before the downturn in students studying abroad in the COVID-19 era, the Institute for International Education's "Open Doors" reports indicated that in recent pre-pandemic years only about 7% of study abroad programs included for-credit…

This article describes the use of mapping strategies in an interdisciplinary course using "Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory" (Repko & Szostak, 2021). The use of interdisciplinary mapping took place in a 300-level undergraduate course and focused on maps presented in the textbook, including the system map (and systems…

We are living through a very difficult moment in human history where we are having to make almost daily decisions about our health, occupations, environment, economics, and democracy, while being bombarded with disinformation, misinformation, and "alternative facts" relative to those decisions. A highly developed information literacy…

Immediately after its appearance, we at the University of Amsterdam's Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies enthusiastically adopted Allen Repko's "Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory" (Repko, 2008) as it was the first textbook that offered systematic explanation of and guidance through the complexities of an…