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Can interdisciplinary research transform futures? This presentation argues yes - but not through consensus-building. Drawing on cybersecurity research, it shows how epistemic contradictions between disciplines generate new research sites and possibilities for action unavailable through translation.

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Interdisciplinary research is widely recognized as essential: problems are too complex for single disciplines, and collaboration is needed to address challenges and imagine better futures. Yet the mechanisms through which interdisciplinary work actually produces knowledge deserve closer examination.

When collaboration encounters difficulties, participants often focus on communication: developing glossaries, bridging "different disciplinary cultures," or improving translation. While well-intentioned, this approach can overlook deeper epistemic, methodological, and ontological contradictions. This presentation suggests an alternative: if interdisciplinarity is to contribute meaningfully to future-making, contradictions themselves might serve as epistemological engines rather than problems to resolve. Scientific knowledge often advances not despite disagreements between disciplines, but through sustained engagement with them.

Following multi-sited ethnography's insight that research sites emerge from disagreements between subjects about "the putatively same world" (Marcus 2009), this presentation explores contradiction-based interdisciplinary work. An example from cybersecurity research in the ForDaySec consortium illustrates this: ethnographic observation revealed that households gift technology and delegate IT security practices, while computer science's 'user' model assumes individuals who purchase, operate, and secure their own devices. Rather than treating this as miscommunication requiring translation, engaging the contradiction directly generated a new collaborative research field: "Security in Everyday Digitalization." What possibilities for knowledge and action emerge when disciplinary contradictions become generative sites rather than obstacles to overcome? This approach positions contradictions as methodological resources that can produce insights unavailable through consensus-oriented frameworks.

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This paper examines how interdisciplinary work is facilitated, explores current and proposed practices that enable interdisciplinary work and analysis what kind of futures are envisioned.

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Much has been written about interdisciplinarity (ID), about its logics, its translation problems, its (epistemological) frictions. Anyone who has worked or tried to work interdisciplinarily knows about the many challenges involved. Nevertheless, one of today’s commonplaces is that existing problems and crises do not care about disciplinary boundaries; inter- and even transdisciplinarity is called for. Research and research institutions are often valued, justified and funded (or not) according to how publics and policy perceives their “impact”. Therefore, it is not surprising that the number of formats aimed at facilitating interdisciplinary work is growing.

What experiences are shared (as good or bad practice) to enable ID? What kind of scenarios, promises and imaginaries are embedded in facilitation formats? How is ID imagined to contribute to just and equitable futures? How are frictions and limitations of ID addressed or not? And what epistemic and ontological assumptions are woven into the advice given or called for?

These questions are addressed by interlacing two strands of data. Strand 1 is an analysis of international facilitation formats including tool boxes, peer-reviewed articles, blog posts, guidance documents and card sets. The second strand are data from a survey addressed to members of Young Academies in Germany investigating their ID work and experiences in general, and frictions including ways of dealing with them in particular.

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This communication examines challenges and contributions of interdisciplinary research on phantom limb sensations through joint interviews with amputee participants, exploring how these methods shape bodily knowledge and raise ethical issues around the transformation of intimate sensory accounts.

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Researching phantom limb sensations raises fundamental methodological obstacles as well as theoretical challenges. Whether the aim is to explain the physiology of this particularly unstable and elusive phenomenon, access its phenomenological expressions, make it disappear, or find functional use for it, researchers face significant epistemic obstacles. This proposal examines what is generated through interdisciplinary research on phantom limb perception in cases of upper or lower limb amputations. It brings together the perspectives of medical teams, a neuroscientist, a doctoral researcher in sport sciences, and an anthropologist, all collaborating within a larger robotics project.

Knowledge is not the only outcome produced through these practices. It is equally important to consider the ethical implications of how individuals’ intimate bodily experiences are being transformed through the questions asked by researchers. Based on the collection and analysis of specific vocabularies, different types of signs of existence, and modes of interpretation through which participants attempt to describe sensations which are often difficult to put into words or images, this paper examines what is produced at the intersection of these disciplines – both in terms of shared vocabulary and knowledge, and in the experience of the participant.

Finally, the paper asks how the phantom limb phenomenon becomes better understood through interviews conducted across multiple disciplines, and what remains inaccessible in this context, particularly with regard to subjective experience. This case highlights both the potential and the limitations of collaborations between disciplines and with so-called “participants”.

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This presentation examines the reinvention of the Centre for Unusual Collaborations as a prefigurative experiment in radical interdisciplinary research. CUCo’s learning journey rethinks conventional funding and training into an ecosystem of collaboration and invites academics who struggle to fit in.

Paper long abstract

Calls for radical forms of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research (ITDR) increasingly emphasize the need for new institutional and epistemic practices. Yet most initiatives remain embedded in conventional academic incentive structures, where short-term funding schemes, competitive selection, and instrumentalized “training” formats risk reproducing the very conditions they seek to transform. This paper examines the ongoing reinvention of the Centre for Unusual Collaborations (CUCo) as an experiment in prefigurative practice for radical ITDR.

Founded to enable unexpected collaborations across disciplinary and societal boundaries, CUCo developed a portfolio of unconventional methods: interactive and embodied training formats (e.g. embodied activities and speculative scenarios), and funding schemes that deliberately subverted meritocratic norms, including allocating grants through lottery. These interventions aimed to cultivate curiosity, trust, and openness—conditions often cited as essential for transformative collaboration. However, the centre has recently begun to rethink its model. Key motivations include the fragility of project-based funding, concerns that extrinsic incentives may crowd out intrinsic motivations for collaboration, and the realization that CUCo’s distinctive practices were not being fully leveraged.

We describe CUCo’s current development of a learning journey: a collectively designed pathway intended less as a consumable training and more as an initiation into a network. Rather than selecting participants solely through conventional excellence metrics, the initiative seeks to engage researchers who struggle to find institutional homes. In this presentations we describe the process of developing the new learning journey as well as key choices made aimed at prefiguring ITDR beyond their current frontiers.

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Interdisciplinarity is often celebrated as a solution, yet it must be practically achieved. Drawing on an ethnomethodological study of a policy-oriented research network, this paper examines how interdisciplinary collaboration is negotiated, formatted, and made accountable in everyday research work.

Paper long abstract

Interdisciplinary research is frequently presented as a normative ideal capable of addressing complex societal challenges. Rather than evaluating interdisciplinarity in terms of success or failure, this paper approaches it as a practical accomplishment: something that must be continuously produced, negotiated, and rendered credible in situated research activities.

Based on an ethnomethodological study of IPORA, an international and policy-oriented interdisciplinary network working on public policy issues in Africa, the paper examines how interdisciplinarity is enacted in everyday research practice. This analysis is based on participant observation of working meetings, interviews with researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds, and close analysis of project proposals, evaluation templates, and research deliverables.

The paper demonstrates that interdisciplinary collaboration is shaped by recurring moments of misalignment, including divergent disciplinary vocabularies, differing assumptions about evidence, and competing expectations regarding policy relevance. Rather than being resolved once and for all, these tensions are managed through practical methods such as disciplinary categorization, sequential negotiation of research objects and roles, and the anticipatory formatting of knowledge claims for evaluative and policy audiences.

By attending to these everyday yet consequential practices, the paper highlights how interdisciplinarity does not simply open epistemic horizons but also constrains what can be seen, said, and valued as legitimate knowledge. In doing so, it contributes to STS debates on interdisciplinarity by foregrounding the situated practices through which collaborative futures are made thinkable, accountable, and actionable.

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Building on interdisciplinary research in the Horizon Europe project “Pacesetters”, this paper investigates co-creation in “Real World Labs” and their focus on “advanced practices”. We argue they constitute complex “collaborative sites of becoming” and generative processes of world-making.

Paper long abstract

Building on interdisciplinary research in the Horizon Europe project “Pacesetters: Powering artistic and cultural entrepreneurship to drive climate transition”, this paper investigates the project’s “Real-World Labs” (RWL) as generative processes of world-making. The paper interrogates especially the project’s co-creative, conceptually complex and transversal work on documenting and bringing-forth so-called “advanced practices” – ways art, culture and creativity (may) collaboratively drive socio-ecological transition. The RWL’s are three concrete and diverse urban and rural physical locations (Genalguacil in Andalucia, Spain, Nowa Huta in Krakow, Poland, and Galway in Ireland) at the margins of hegemonic discourses on creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.

The Pacesetters project have conceived the RWL’s as sites for highly interdisciplinary and intersectoral experimentation and co-creation with actors such as scientists, citizens, artists, cultural institutions and municipalities. The main aim of them is to spur social imagination, experimentation and testing of multiple approaches of co-creative research through arts and culture. Arts and culture, history and heritage, mediated through artistic, practice- and action-based research, are the lenses and processes through which generative encounters and unexpected processes, outcomes and results may emerge and be further enabled and strenghtened.

Utilizing theories co-design, co-creation and world-making (e.g. Escobar 2018, Handelman 2021), that highlight the complexities and “messieness” of emergence and the “forming of form”, the paper emphasises how the affective-aesthetic dimensions involved in uniting “feeling and form” (Langer 1953, Hardt 2014) is key to understanding these RWL’s as artistically and creatively powered “collaborative sites of becoming”.

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Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research (ITD) is promoted to address societal challenges but shaped by paradoxes. Drawing on STS and paradox theory, this paper examines how collaborations in a Swiss research centre negotiate tensions to shape sociotechnical futures in digital construction.

Paper long abstract

Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary (ITD) research is promoted as a key approach for addressing complex societal challenges such as sustainability. Yet ITD research is characterized by persistent paradoxes which may hinder systemic innovation. Applying a science and technology studies (STS) and paradox lens, this paper examines how ITD research is narrated and practiced in a large research centre in Switzerland. Drawing on a meta-narrative analysis of innovation narratives in digital construction publications and an autoethnography of the author embedded within the centre, the study asks what futures become possible through diverse ITD configurations of the centre.

Focusing on several research collaborations within the centre that span varying degrees of disciplinary integration and industry involvement, the study analyses how tensions between disciplinarity and ITD are negotiated in ways that make diverse futures feasible. These negotiations unfold through ‘balancing acts’ – boundary practices and objects such as research demonstrators, reports, collaborative processes, and research publications. The findings suggest that different configurations of ITD research collaborations stabilize distinct innovation narratives and sociotechnical trajectories. Rather than simply enabling innovation, ITD configurations actively shape which futures become thinkable and actionable within emerging fields such as digital construction.

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Predetermined project frames can hamper transformative transdisciplinary research. Drawing on two agricultural projects in the Netherlands and Tanzania, this paper shows how repertoires influence a project’s capacity to reframe.

Paper long abstract

Co-production is proposed as a promising way for diverse actors to collaborate within research projects (Norström et al., 2020). Ideally, co-production entails the braiding-together of diverse knowledges, equitable decision-making, agile project framing, and the generation of transformative outcomes (Chambers et al., 2021, 2022; Tengö et al., 2017). While ample contemporary literature describes how successful co-production can be facilitated (Djenontin & Meadow, 2018; Mach et al., 2020; Norström et al., 2020), the majority of these studies focuses on projects that integrate diverse perspectives from the outset, for example through co-design.

In contrast, many interdisciplinary projects do not begin this way. Project frames are often predetermined by narrow a subset of researchers, which may hamper transformative outcomes if these frames remain unchallenged. What, then, enables or constrains projects to adapt existing frames to the perspectives of diverse actors later on?

Building on foundational work characterizing research communities (Kuhn, 1962; Knorr-Cetina, 1999), we propose repertoire theory (Ankeny & Leonelli, 2016, 2021) as a lens to analyze how the structural characteristics of actor groups influence a project’s capacity to reframe. Repertoires are patterns of conceptual, material, and socio-economic elements that structure actors’ activities. We extend the use of repertoire theory to analyzing co-production processes between research communities and societal stakeholders.

Drawing on participant observation and 30 interviews in two transdisciplinary agricultural projects in the Netherlands and Tanzania, we show that transdisciplinary tensions do not automatically become productive sites of reframing. Rather, their potential depends on whether existing repertoires can be aligned and partially reconfigured.

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This study focuses on norms in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research by identifying analytical dimensions. It finds that such research deviates from norms in institutions and introduces co-production oriented towards sustainable transformation.

Paper long abstract

The institutional lens on addressing wicked problems as well as on achieving sustainable and just futures asks for transformative action as the new normal. Such action is realized in research institutions through interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, which approach wicked problems through epistemic diversity and participation. However, both organizational change and interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research face the structuration of fields, hampering critical, integrative, and boundary-crossing approaches. This issue is systemically caused by disciplining and gatekeeping phenomena iterated through various norms driving organizational practice. To address this problem, this paper asks the following research questions: What are the norms in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research? What roles do norms play in collaborative research crossing disciplines, fields, or institutions? Norms in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research are investigated through a meta-ethnography, and key metaphors are derived from the academic literature reviewed. As norms in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research are ambiguous and multidimensional, five analytical dimensions are identified to characterize and problematize norms in research institutions. They are specified according to the roles norms have in both knowledge production and research directions. Our findings reveal that interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research offer ways to counterbalance structural pressures and institutional barriers by increasing collaboration and introducing co-production. Besides, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research normalize transformation towards more sustainable and just futures.

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We argue that pluralism is a core value for inter-and transdisciplinarity. We examine notions of ethical, political, and epistemological pluralism, drawing on experiences, examples, as well as challenges within the Berlin Ethics Certificate [BEC], an inter- and transdisciplinary program.

Paper long abstract

We argue that pluralism is a core value for inter- and transdisciplinarity. In light of growing anti-pluralistic and authoritarian tendencies in contemporary politics and socio-technical systems, it is crucial to reflect on the meaning and practices of pluralism from ethical, epistemological, and political philosophy perspectives, and to draw implications for inter- and transdisciplinary higher education (Keestra & Schmidt 2024). Thus, in this contribution, we examine notions of ethical, political, and epistemological pluralism, drawing on experiences with the Berlin Ethics Certificate [BEC] (Ammon et al., 2022). The BEC is an inter- and transdisciplinary program that offers students the opportunity to develop competencies in ethics, technology, and science reflection, and which reached over 450 students from 137 fields of study. Pluralism became an integral part of the BEC on several levels: First, it serves as the starting point for the program, in which students with diverse disciplinary and social backgrounds are invited to participate in classes together. Secondly, based on this diversity, cooperative practices are emphasized. Through experimental formats that specifically address the heterogeneity of knowledge, values, and opinions, students learn to articulate their perspectives, situate their knowledge and engage with each other. Thirdly, students are encouraged and supported to work intensively on real-world problems together with non-academic actors. In this way, the BEC seeks to convey a pluralistic attitude through situated and experiential learning, in which inter- and transdisciplinarity become integrated practices of responsible research and problem solving.

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Examining cross-institutional doctoral programmes, this study explores how embodied interdisciplinary research practices are shaped by institutional structures, resources, and routines, and how these conditions influence collaborations and knowledge production.

Paper long abstract

In trying to understand how interdisciplinary research can change the world, we also need to consider how the situatedness of this research influences embodied research practices. Research situations include both human and non-human actors that shape situated embodied research practices. Institutional structures are fundamental aspects to the situatedness of interdisciplinary research. These structures can limit what is possible, foster collaborations between individuals, and guide embodied research practices. Considering how institutional structures shape research practices is specifically valuable for interdisciplinary research done cross-institutionally, like many doctoral MSCA programmes.

These often-overlooked institutional aspects (e.g., organizational structure of laboratories or departmental requirements for PhD students) can have a significant influence on the research conducted within these settings. Yet discussions of interdisciplinarity often focus on epistemic differences between disciplines, while paying less attention to the institutional conditions that shape how such collaborations unfold in practice.

The shaping force of these non-human actors can be even greater in interdisciplinary cross-institutional doctoral MSCA programmes, given their complex institutional layering and the additional resources required for interdisciplinary doctoral research. Something as seemingly inconspicuous as which section of the biophysics department owns a specific machine for experimentation can influence what kinds of interdisciplinary research become possible, showing that understanding and navigating institutional arrangements is crucial for realising the transformative potential of interdisciplinary collaborations.

This study is associated to the newly established SPINE project (UCPH). The SPINE project addresses the critical gap between the acknowledged importance of interdisciplinary research and the practical realities of collaboration within existing academic structures.

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A survey of 85 researchers in interdisciplinary teams at three German digitalisation institutes. Mixed-method analyses show: learning drives project satisfaction; publication/career prospects drive perceived success. Qualitative data highlight tensions over time, careers and data management.

Paper long abstract

Interdisciplinarity has become a core component of many contemporary research fields (e.g., digital transformation research). Despite its normative appeal and institutional support, interdisciplinary collaboration entails substantial challenges, including issues of career development and the coordination of diverse epistemic cultures (Vladova et al. 2025; Vienni-Baptista & Klein 2022). A central yet discussed question concerns the conditions under which interdisciplinary teamwork can be considered successful and which factors shape its outcomes (Bammer et al. 2020). To approach this question, we conducted a questionnaire study with 85 members from various disciplines and hierarchical levels of interdisciplinary project teams. The questionnaire was developed based on interdisciplinary and integration science, team science, and evaluation literature, as well as input from scientists in workshops (Suckow et al. 2024) and contained open-ended and closed questions. In the quantitative analysis, we identified two key dependent variables: satisfaction with the interdisciplinary project and perceived project success. In regression models, satisfaction was derived from the feeling of learning as a positive driver. For self-estimated success, the presence of publication and career opportunities was identified as a relevant positive driver. Open answers revealed recurring themes concerning tensions in project management when expectations regarding time, careers and data management differed. Together with the panel, we are interested in how these results can be applied in terms of learning research organizations, new career paths and resilient futures of knowledge societies.

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This reflection paper demarcates Embedded Ethics from neighbouring approaches and develops a shared terminology, outlining how this research program contributes both to the practical integration of ethical reflection in research and to theory development in the Ethics the Philosophy of Technology.

Paper long abstract

It has become a common position that ethical aspects e.g. of technologies can best be mitigated through the ongoing interdisciplinary co-laboration between ethicists, computer scientists and engineers. Among these efforts, "Embedded Ethics" has emerged as a prominent approach, emphasizing close collaboration between ethicists, scientists, and engineers (van der Burg 2009; McLennan et al. 2022) Despite its growing use, the term Embedded Ethics remains conceptually underspecified and is used interchangeably with established approaches that integrate ethical and societal reflection into research, e.g. Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects (ELSI), Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), and Technology Assessment (TA). This reflection paper addresses this ambiguity and asks how to define the term embedding ethics and justify such an approach.

First, it outlines the conceptual foundations of the term embedded ethics by situating it within the broader landscape of approaches to their normative assumptions, epistemological orientations, and modes of interdisciplinary collaboration. By distinguishing it from neighbouring approaches, we clarify its contributions and overlaps.

Second, drawing on empirical cases, we outline a framework for embedded ethics as a collaborative research practice. These cases highlight the epistemic and organisational conditions enabling ethicists to engage meaningfully in research while maintaining critical and reflective perspectives.

Building on this analysis, we propose embedded ethics as a complementary mode of interdisciplinary collaboration. The paper explores how such collaborations can contribute both to the practical integration of ethical reflection in scientific practice and to theory development in the Ethics the Philosophy of Technology.

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Interdisciplinary development of robotic systems in care makes understandings of care visible. Engineers formalize tasks, whereas nurses require "tinkering in practice". These tensions function as epistemic frictions, rendering assumptions negotiable and reshaping interdisciplinary collaboration.

Paper long abstract

Robotic systems for nursing care are increasingly developed and introduced into long-term care settings, often framed as responses to demographic change, labor shortages, and efficiency pressures. Current research approaches range from co-design and co-creation to broader forms of participatory engagement with future users. Yet the closer such systems move into real-world care environments, the more situations emerge in which divergent understandings of care, learning, and professional identity become visible between the different professional roles involved.

Based on qualitative interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic field work within an interdisciplinary research project in which a robotic system is co-designed by engineers and care practitioners, this paper analyzes how both groups conceptualize care and negotiate their respective roles as they collectively make sense of the system in practice.

For engineers, the care home primarily serves as a site for identifying and validating tasks, while learning occurs in the laboratory through modeling and testing. For nurses, by contrast, embedding the robotic system in daily work routines is a precondition for understanding its relevance and limits. While engineers tend to approach care as a set of formalizable tasks, nursing professionals enact it as a situated and relational practice. The contrasting understandings also shape expectations towards each other’s roles and outcomes of the project.

Drawing on Donna Haraway’s notion of “becoming with”, the paper conceptualizes the resulting tensions as productive epistemic frictions through which care practices, professional roles, and technological possibilities are mutually negotiated in interdisciplinary technology development.

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To investigate the skills required for high-quality collaborative research, I interviewed research professionals from the Transforming the UK Food System programme. I argue that the keys skills required are not fully recognised, damaging careers and limiting the impact of such research.

Paper long abstract

Research that crosses disciplines and sectors is seen as a key component of efforts to reduce, for example, the greenhouse gas emissions associated with agriculture and rising rates of chronic disease related to poor diets. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has invested several million pounds in Transforming the UK Food System (TUKFS) a five-year research programme that aims to provide a range of solutions to improve the health of the population and the environment. Inter-, multi-and transdisciplinary research is central to this programme as many of the TUKFS projects and consortia describe themselves as conducting some form collaborative research.

This presentation describes a piece of exploratory research investigating the collaborative research undertaken within some of the 27 TUKFS projects. It draws on an ongoing series of qualitative interviews conducted with researchers and research professionals from these projects. My analysis draws on approaches from science and technology studies, the scholarship on inter- and transdisciplinary research and feminist studies of academic labour. My results describe some of the skills and attributes required by researchers and research managers when researching complex social problems, and explore some of the ethical, epistemic, cultural, and practical tensions inherent in such collaborations. In conclusion, I highlight some of unacknowledged labour that is part of high-quality collaborative research, arguing that a more accurate model of the skills required could improve both the design and societal relevance of such research.

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This study examines the epistemic friction and identity tensions inherent in inter- and transdisciplinary research. Drawing on four translational design case studies, it analyses how competing disciplinary values and institutional rewards create barriers to collaboration and societal impact.

Paper long abstract

Transdisciplinary research challenges the boundaries of knowledge, yet its potential is often limited by the epistemic friction between collaborating sectors. This paper asks: how can this friction become a productive site of knowledge-making rather than an obstacle? Through a making and doing lens in STS (Downey & Zuiderent-Jerak, 2016), this study examines a translational design process implemented across workshops with four university research groups, seeking real-world impact. Translational design can enable collaboration between research, industry, policy, and society for systemic knowledge co-production and impact (Baule, 2016; Hornbuckle and Page, 2024), creating a space where these tensions can be productively negotiated. Knowledge production processes are socially constructed by the groups involved in their making (Pinch et al. 1984). Building on this, the analysis reveals how tensions arise not just from different methods, but from competing professional identities, the perceived risks of public engagement, and the misalignment between institutional rewards (publications) and personal motivations (societal impact). Findings show that this structured process helps reframe research questions and fosters peer-to-peer learning, enabling a shift toward shared, application-oriented goals. The study concludes that transdisciplinary research requires methods that explicitly address the identity work and epistemic friction involved. It contributes a replicable process for turning the practical tensions of collaboration into opportunities for co-creating more resilient and hopeful futures.