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How People Work Together

Thematic Group 2: How People Work Together (Types of Collaboration)

This group defines distinct modes of collaboration, describing how knowledge is organized, integrated, and produced across individuals, disciplines, and sectors. Although these terms are often used interchangeably in academic settings, they represent meaningfully different levels of integration, co-production, and structural coordination.

Clarifying these distinctions is essential in Promotion and Tenure contexts, where faculty contributions must be evaluated accurately. The degree of knowledge integration, the role of non-academic partners, the structure of collaboration, and the distribution of intellectual responsibility all vary across these forms. Together, they form a continuum — from coordinated disciplinary work to deeply integrated, co-created, and use-inspired inquiry.

Collaboration types can therefore be understood along two axes: the degree of knowledge integration, and the breadth of participants —ranging from disciplinary specific work to cross-sector partnerships, including community.

Similarities and Differences

All terms:

  • Involve collaboration across expertise domains.
  • Require documentation of individual contribution for TPMR evaluation.
  • May generate co-authored outputs and shared impact.
  • May overlap in practice.

However, they differ along key dimensions:

Mode Integration Level   Participants Orientation Distinguishing Feature
Multidisciplinary Low Academic disciplines Coordinated expertise Parallel contributions
Interdisciplinary Moderate–High Academic disciplines Knowledge synthesis Integrated frameworks
Transdisciplinary High Academic + non-academic Solutions-oriented Co-creation across sectors
Team Science Variable Often multi-level teams Structured collaboration Organized interdependence

 

Multidisciplinary collaboration brings together specialists from different disciplines who work independently and contribute their separate expertise toward a shared goal.

What is it?

  • Multidisciplinary collaboration involves teams from different disciplines working independently on their own contributions and coming together through formal interactions.

 

How do you do it?

  • Each team member brings their expertise, and disciplinary knowledge is placed side by side to develop a fuller understanding.
  • Multidisciplinary collaboration has been common in clinical care and research, where each specialist works independently within their scope of practice and coordinates through formal channels — an approach that respects professional boundaries, fits within time-pressured workflows, and ensures clear accountability while still bringing multiple perspectives to bear on patient care and research questions.

 

Where can you learn more about it?

Interdisciplinary collaboration moves beyond parallel contribution toward intentional synthesis. Participants integrate theories, methods, and frameworks to generate new approaches that transcend individual disciplines. Knowledge is co-developed rather than merely combined.

What is it?

  • Interdisciplinary collaboration is a form of scholarly work in which faculty from two or more academic disciplines intentionally integrate theories, methods, and perspectives to address complex questions that cannot be adequately examined within a single field. Unlike multidisciplinary approaches, which place disciplinary insights side by side, interdisciplinary collaboration is defined by synthesis—the co-production of knowledge that transcends disciplinary boundaries.
  • It typically involves participants with relatively comparable levels of expertise, enabling shared intellectual framing, mutual learning, and collective responsibility for outcomes. This form of collaboration often generates new research questions, methods, or conceptual frameworks and contributes to multiple scholarly communities simultaneously.
  • Within Promotion and Tenure contexts, interdisciplinary collaboration is increasingly recognized as essential to addressing complex societal, environmental, and technological challenges. Its evaluation requires attention to both individual contributions and collective scholarly impact, particularly when work spans departments, institutions, or fields.

 

How do you do it?

Interdisciplinary collaboration is evidenced through documented intellectual, leadership, and scholarly contributions to integrative projects, including:

  • Co-developing research questions, methods, or frameworks that synthesize multiple disciplinary perspectives.
  • Serving as a co-investigator, lead, or core contributor on interdisciplinary research teams, centers, or initiatives.
  • Producing co-authored publications, reports, or creative works that engage multiple academic or professional audiences.
  • Securing or contributing to interdisciplinary grants involving multiple departments or institutions.
  • Holding leadership or substantial roles that enable collaboration across disciplinary, institutional, or professional boundaries.
  • Receiving recognition (e.g., awards, invitations, external reviews) from more than one scholarly or professional community.
  • Clearly documenting individual intellectual and organizational contributions within collaborative work for review purposes.

 

Where can you learn more about it?

Transdisciplinary collaboration is a mode of inquiry in which researchers, practitioners, and community members from diverse disciplines and lived-experience backgrounds work across and beyond disciplinary boundaries to co-produce knowledge that addresses complex real-world problems in ways no single field could achieve alone.

What is it?

  • Transdisciplinary collaboration or transdisciplinary research (TDR) involves deep integration of knowledge and co-creation among all stakeholders — including academics, practitioners, and community members — who work together to generate shared understanding that transcends any single discipline.
  • TDR is solutions oriented and engages across disciplines and sectors to address critical societal challenges via knowledge and action.
  • TDR is a complex form of use-inspired inquiry that brings together people across disciplines and sectors through participatory, engaged practices. By deeply integrating knowledge and discovery beyond traditional boundaries, it aims to directly address critical societal challenges in ways no single discipline or sector could achieve alone.

 

How do you do it?

  • All participants — academics, practitioners, community members — are equal knowledge holders.
  • The problem is co-defined collectively, grounded in real-world needs.
  • Shared language and frameworks are developed that transcend any single discipline.
  • Trust and sustained relationships are built through ongoing mutual learning.
  • New knowledge emerges that no single discipline could have produced alone.
  • Products are both rigorous and actionable — useful to academic and community audiences alike.
  • All participants build new capacities through the process.

 

Where can you learn more about it?

Team science describes coordinated, often large-scale collaborative research organized around interdependent teams. It emphasizes structured coordination, shared goals, defined roles, and intentional team processes that enable outcomes beyond individual capacity.

What is it?

  • Team science refers to a collaborative approach to research and scholarship in which interdependent teams of researchers work together—often across disciplines, institutions, sectors, or career stages—to address complex scientific, social, or technical problems. It emphasizes coordinated effort, shared goals, and intentional team processes that enable outcomes beyond the capacity of individual investigators working alone.
  • Distinct from general collaboration, team science foregrounds the science of collaboration itself: how teams are formed, led, coordinated, and evaluated; how expertise is integrated; and how credit, responsibility, and impact are distributed. Team science is especially prevalent in large-scale, high-impact research contexts (e.g., health, climate, sustainability, data-intensive research) and is increasingly recognized by funding agencies and research universities as essential to advancing knowledge.
  • In Promotion and Tenure contexts, team science requires evaluation practices that recognize meaningful individual contributions within collective work, including intellectual leadership, coordination, and integrative roles that may not align with single-author or PI-centric models.

 

How do you do it?

Team science is evidenced through documented contributions to coordinated, multi-person research efforts, including:

  • Serving as a principal investigator, co-PI, or core team member on team-based or large-scale research projects.
  • Contributing essential disciplinary, methodological, or technical expertise to a research team.
  • Playing leadership or coordination roles (e.g., team lead, work-package lead, methods lead, data or integration lead).
  • Producing co-authored publications, reports, or shared research products resulting from team-based inquiry.
  • Securing or contributing to grants or contracts that explicitly support team-based or collaborative research.
  • Developing or implementing team processes (e.g., collaboration protocols, shared frameworks, and integrative methods).
  • Clearly articulating individual intellectual, organizational, and leadership contributions within team-based work for review.

 

Where can you learn more about it?