Five Tips for Researching Across Disciplinary Boundaries

by Aleksandra Milenovic 

​Before I can give any tips on how to research across disciplines, it is best to clarify some of the terms that are being used for any research being done outside a single sole discipline. Musicologist Alexander Refsum Jensenius (2022, xviii.) visualizes Stembers (1991) explanation of the different “disciplinary” traversals.
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​I quote the exact explanation of each term but give my own examples relevant to the COSSEE Lab.
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• Intradisciplinary: “Working within a single discipline”
  • Example: Two ecologists are working together in designing and collecting data examining the life history of the Blue Tit.

• Crossdisciplinary: “Viewing one discipline from the perspective of another.”
  • Example: The ecologists recruit a statistician to consult, to ensure that the statistical model they select is optimal for their design.

• Multidisciplinary: “Working together with people from different disciplines, each drawing on their disciplinary knowledge.”
  • Example: An evolutionary biologist forms a team with the ecologists and statistician, to examine how ecological conditions drive changes in the life history of the Blue Tit.

• Interdisciplinary: “Integrating knowledge and methods from different disciplines, using a real synthesis of approaches.”
  • Example:  Using knowledge gained from the team, they joined forces with local historians with expertise in the local community’s interactions with the bird to create one unified approach to creating conservation efforts and a roadmap.

• Transdisciplinary: “Creating a unity of intellectual frameworks beyond the disciplinary perspectives.”
  • Examples: Based on the success of the implementation of the conservation roadmap- this becomes a transdisciplinary conservation effort.

There have been excellent visualizations of these concepts, with other examples provided,  Archontia Manolakelli offers both on a fantastic blogpost: https://www.archpsych.co.uk/post/disciplinarities-definitions. There has also been scholarly literature on working across these travels (Transdisciplinary- Harris et al., 2024; Interdisciplinary - Nancarrow et al., 2013; Multidisciplinary; Ooi et al., 2023 as examples of the examination or use of the approach). However, this is a blogpost, and now that you are hopefully familiar with the different definitions of research across boundaries and have had the opportunity to check out some of the research on it, we can move to the tips that I found useful in my own disciplinary travels.
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Tip 1: Figure out where you and your research are positioned in the continuum
The position of your research and yourself as a researcher will change over time. It will fluctuate across subprojects and different dynamics of collaborations, or might fit in between two definitions. Questions that can help you reflect are as follows: 

• what disciplinary lens are you bringing to this blogpost? 
• what brought you to this COSSEE blogpost - the lens of open science, or ecology and evolution? 

Reflecting on such matters can be considered as “positionality”, which is frequently considered in qualitative research (Bourke, 2014).
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Tip 2: Read widely, read what you’re interested in and what you don’t yet quite understand.
I originally encountered Stembers’ definition (1991) of disciplinary boundaries through Tarlo & Tucker's (2019) excellent introduction to an event bringing together academics and artists to explore the disciplinary boundaries and “explore ideas around place, ecology and environment” (2019, p.19) through a conference, exhibition and manuscript. Yet the reason I read this text in the first place, was because it was in the journal “Green Letters” dedicated to studies of empirical ecocriticism - a field which brings together the humanities and ecology. It was an interesting way of bridging the discipline of my last role in empirical literary studies and now biological sciences (as recommended by my former PI Dr. Ailise Bulfin). I didn’t know it then, but it would become a foundational text for defining collaborations, which is a key part of my proposed PhD thesis. 

Tip 3: Respect other disciplines, even if you don’t understand or are interested in them.
Speaking of reading things you are interested in that will lay dormant in your mind until the right time (like the sword in the stone), there will be disciplines that do not interest you neither professionally nor personally. I will not disrespect any discipline by naming the ones I’m apathetic to publicly, as to another scholar they are the source of passion, and passion is infectious. Thus, it is important to respect other disciplines, as you may end up working with someone nestled within them or have a history in them.

Tip 4: Learn the language of different disciplines. 
Although all disciplines are connected to some degree in the pursuit of knowledge and truth - even ones using similar methodological frameworks have different “accents” to the same language. For instance, although statistical models are used both in psychology as well as biology there are stark differences in the design they are applied to. This is rendered visible in the differences in terminology; the predictor versus the independent variable for the effect of interest, the response versus the dependent variable for what is being effected, respectively. 

Tip 5: The sunk cost fallacy is just a fallacy.
No knowledge is ever wasted or rendered obsolete. If you become an expert in something or advance your career in a certain field, you are not obligated to remain there. You can move away, and the knowledge will move with you and be transformed in new disciplines and new domains.

References:

Bourke, B. (2014). Positionality: Reflecting on the research process. The qualitative report, 19(33), 1-9.

Harris, F., Lyon, F., Sioen, G. B., & Ebi, K. L. (2024). Working with the tensions of transdisciplinary research: a review and agenda for the future of knowledge co-production in the Anthropocene. Global Sustainability, 7, e13.

Jensenius, A. R. (2022).Sound actions: Conceptualizing musical instruments. MIT Press.

Nancarrow, S. A., Booth, A., Ariss, S., Smith, T., Enderby, P., & Roots, A. (2013). Ten principles of good interdisciplinary team work. Human resources for Health, 11(1), 19.

Ooi, K. B., Tan, G. W. H., Al-Emran, M., Al-Sharafi, M. A., Capatina, A., Chakraborty, A., ... & Wong, L. W. (2025). The potential of generative artificial intelligence across disciplines: Perspectives and future directions. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 65(1), 76-107.

Tarlo, H., & Tucker, J. (2019). Cross Multi Inter Trans: a contextual introduction. Green Letters, 23(3), 219–230. https://doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2019.1682347