Integration Experts and Expertise

The Working Group explores, develops and promotes academic careers of integration experts across different scientific communities and geographic regions, while strengthening related expertise in integration at the interface between different disciplines as well as between research, policy and practice.

Beginning in mid-2025, the Working Group is organised in three output-oriented projects:

Events related to each project are described in their project sections and on the ITD Alliance Events page.

Goals

The purpose of the Working Group is to further explore, develop, and promote academic careers of integration experts across different scientific communities and geographic regions. It also seeks to strengthen related expertise in integration at the interface between different disciplines (interdisciplinary integration) as well as between science, policy, and practice (transdisciplinary integration) to meet pressing environmental and societal challenges of our time.

The specific goals of the Working Group are to:

  1. Develop a joint vision and specific interventions for transforming academic structures and supporting academic careers of integration experts at both individual and institutional level.
  2. Provide a safe space for peer-to-peer exchange and mutual learning across different scientific communities and geographic regions.
  3. Generate a shared set of resources (e.g., concepts, methods, and tools) for addressing recurring challenges of integration in inter- and transdisciplinary research.
  4. Engage in dialogue with research institutes, universities, and funders to discuss lessons learned and best practices on how to support academic careers of integration experts.

These goals are expected to evolve during the process of establishing, expanding, and consolidating this Working Group. The group is open to anyone interested in exploring, developing, and promoting academic careers of integration experts and strengthening related expertise.

Recognising the Contributions of Integration and Integration Experts (Value Project)

This project focuses on how to assess and articulate the contributions of integration expertise in inter- and transdisciplinary research, education and practice. We envision a future where integration expertise is recognised and valued by our institutions, colleagues, partner organisations, funders, employers, students, and society at large.

Our mission is to make the contributions of integration expertise visible, tangible and accessible to diverse stakeholders. We aim to do this by stimulating the development and adaptation of frameworks and approaches that help assess and articulate such contributions. If successful, the project will have provided new tools that both advance research on inter- and transdisciplinary integration as well as further recognition of the value of integration expertise.

For the academic year 2025/26, we plan to produce a collaborative conceptual piece that defines the problem and identifies potential future pathways for developing relevant frameworks and approaches.

Inaugural Workshop, October 28, 2025

The inaugural workshop of the Recognising the Contributions of Integration and Integration Experts Project (Value Project) of the Integration Experts and Expertise Working Group is open to everyone in the ITD community who is interested in exploring how the contributions of integration and integration experts could be recognised and valued.

Areas to be explored in first workshop:

  • What are the current challenges in recognising the contributions of integration and integration experts?
  • In which settings would more developed frameworks for assessing and articulating these contributions be most beneficial?
  • What other complex assessment practices or models could inspire new frameworks in this area?
  • What essential qualities should a conceptual piece from the IEE Value Project include to guide future work of the project?

Date: October 28, 2025
Time: 10:00-12:00 GMT
Sign-up (before 10 October, 2025): https://doit.medfarm.uu.se/bin/kurt3/kurt/8889315

NB: Do also use the form if you want to connect with the IEE Value Project, but are unable to attend the inaugural workshop!

Conveners

Giedre Kligyte, TD Electives Program Director & Senior Lecturer, Transdisciplinary School, University of Technology Sydney
Claes-Fredrik Helgesson, Director, Centre for Integrated Research on Culture and Society (CIRCUS), Uppsala University
Helena Grönqvist, Deputy Director & Project Manager, Centre for Integrated Research on Culture and Society (CIRCUS), Uppsala University

Email all co-conveners

Learning, Teaching and Training on Integration (Education Project)

The purpose of this project is to act as a focal point for educators seeking to develop and practice integrative pedagogies. Educators working with inter- and transdisciplinary educational approaches seek to develop integration skills not only in students but also in academics and extra-academic actors, for example, in transdisciplinary challenge-based learning. This project seeks to connect educators by sharing best practice, evaluative methods, evidence and tools to support integration with the goal of documenting and sharing these. This project will actively connect with the Integration Tools Project and the Integration Value Project.

Details of the first project meeting will be announced soon.

Conveners

Gemma O’Sullivan (g.b.osullivan@uu.nl)
Simon Scott (s.scott@bham.ac.uk)

Integration Tools Project

The purpose of this project is to identify the integration-specific tools that integration experts should know about. By “integration-specific” we mean tools that accomplish an integrative process rather than those that prepare for integration (e.g., by surfacing inputs) or that follow integration (e.g., disseminating integrated outputs). The project is co-sponsored with the Toolkits & Methods Working Group. See the dedicated Integration Tools Project for details and to contact the Core group.

Archive: Events & Publications

Events

Pilot Workshop «Towards a Theory of Change on Integration Experts and Expertise», February 2023
What can be done to recognise integration experts and expertise and to support the careers of such experts? A pilot workshop organized within the ITD Alliance Working Group on Integration Experts and Expertise held in Aeschiried, a mountain village in Switzerland, in February 2023 addressed this question. The results of that pilot workshop are available at: Towards a theory of change to institutionalise integration experts and expertise by The Aeschiried Integrators https://i2insights.org/2023/06/06/institutionalising-integration-expertise/

Publications

Hoffmann S, Deutsch L, Klein JT, O’Rourke M (2022) Integrate the integrators! A call for establishing academic careers for integration experts. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 9. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01138-z

Hoffmann S, Deutsch L, O’Rourke M (2024) Integration experts and expertise. In: Darbellay F (ed) Elgar Encyclopedia of Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity. Elgaronline, eBook, pp 273-276

Former Core Team Members

  • Sabine Hoffmann, Inter- and Transdisciplinary (ITD) Research Group, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Switzerland
  • Christian Pohl, Transdisciplinary Lab of the Department of Environmental Systems Science (USYS TdLab) at ETH Zurich, Switzerland
  • Bianca Vienni Baptista, Transdisciplinary Lab of the Department of Environmental Systems Science (USYS TdLab) at ETH Zurich, Switzerland
  • Michael O’Rourke, Toolbox Dialogue Initiative Center at MSU Center for Interdisciplinarity, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
  • Gabriele Bammer, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
  • Christine Ogilvie Hendren, Appalachian State University, USA
  • Sebastian Rogga, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany
  • Alexandra Lux, Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE), Germany

Contact

View contact information by project: