Background

The ITD Alliance Leadership Board is organizing a video series of 5-minute presentations by members about various aspects of conceptual and linguistic pluralism, including:

• alternative terms for inter- and transdisciplinarity in different countries,
• different ways in which inter- and transdisciplinarity and other forms of boundary crossing research are practiced
• issues that are specifically important to particular cultures.

We aim to present new videos periodically.

The specific stimulus for this series of videos was a 2025 collaboration between the Transdisciplinary Training Collaboratory and the ITD Alliance on a series of five regional workshops that aimed to evaluate the training needs for engaged research (an umbrella term used to encompass transdisciplinary research and neighboring approaches) across Latin America and the Caribbean; Sub-Saharan Africa; Europe, including Turkey and Russia; Asia; and the combined regions of the United States, Canada, and Australia/New Zealand. See the report, “Advancing Engaged Research Globally – Region by Region: Assessing Training Needs”.

One of the most significant results of those workshops was the recognition that the vocabulary and concepts for engaged research are diverse and differ within and among world regions. As a global organization, the ITD Alliance recognizes and values that plurality and is highlighting it in this video series.