Transdisciplinary research is, essentially, team science. In a transdisciplinary research endeavor, scientists contribute their unique expertise but work entirely outside their own discipline. They strive to understand the complexities of the whole project, rather than one part of it. Transdisciplinary research allows investigators to transcend their own disciplines to inform one another’s work, capture complexity, and create new intellectual spaces.

What’s The Difference?

Transdisciplinary Research

Multidisciplinary Research

Interdisciplinary Research

Collaboration in which exchanging information, altering discipline-specific approaches, sharing resources and integrating disciplines achieves a common scientific goal (Rosenfield 1992).

Researchers from a variety of disciplines work together at some point during a project, but have separate questions, separate conclusions, and disseminate in different journals.

Researchers interact with the goal of transferring knowledge from one discipline to another. Allows researchers to inform each other’s work and compare individual findings.