Interweaving disciplines

Publication date:
September 2025

This unique edition of environmental SCIENTIST explores an approach that the IES has long championed in the sector: interdisciplinarity. Defined here as a way of working across and beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries, interdisciplinarity is fundamental to environmental science: a field that is home to a broad range of topics, concepts, and approaches to research and practice.

It could therefore be argued that environmental science is the natural habitat of interdisciplinary working. A less siloed approach to environmental work has gained traction over the last decade, and interdisciplinarity is now often held up as the gold standard of new research and working practices in environmental science. Professionals are encouraged to think and work with interdisciplinarity in mind: but how does this take shape when creating new research projects, new interdisciplinary teams, or engaging new audiences? Does the buzzword of interdisciplinarity bring with it adequate funding, support, and impetus for systemic change: enough to allow truly interdisciplinary work to take place, and break new ground?

This issue of environmental SCIENTIST considers the answers to these questions by showcasing success stories of the creation of new interdisciplinary communities, the formation of interdisciplinary Higher Education (HE) curricula for the next generation of environmental scientists, and considering how environmental professionals can follow their own game-changing interdisciplinary career paths. 

  1. Introduction – Frontiers of interdisciplinarity in the environmental sciences – Catherine Butler
  2. Interdisciplinary research: more than just a good idea – Joanne Patterson
  3. Dialogue Between Disciplines Conference, June 2025: roundtable discussion – Sian Davies-Vollum, Denis Thompson, Carla Washbourne & Dan Carpenter
  4. Bridging the gap between the natural and social sciences in sustainability education – Claire Hughes & Lynda Dunlop
  5. Collaborative land and water management through the Catchment Based Approach – Rob Collins
  6. The Valuing Nature Programme: what has it taught us? – Professor Rosie Hails
  7. Cultivating communities of practice for interdisciplinary collaboration – Ethny Childs
  8. In-between worlds: the lived experience and skills of interdisciplinary career professionals – Alexandra Budjanovcanin
  9. Transformative change: how can meaningful trans-disciplinary approaches accelerate housing decarbonisation? – Louise King
  10. Advancing interdisciplinary work on climate change and health: Early lessons from the Net Positive Centre – Tim Taylor, Cornelia Guell, Helen Macintyre, Katharine Earnshaw, Liz O’Brien & Benedict Wheeler 

Who to contact

Bea Gilbert

Publications Lead

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This unique edition of environmental SCIENTIST explores an approach that the IES has long championed in the sector:...

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