The cross-disciplinary research approach can be conceptualized along a continuum of increasing disciplinary integration, with unidisciplinary research at one end of the continuum and transdisciplinary (TD) research at the other end [5,6]. Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research refer to increasing levels of disciplinary integration that fall between unidisciplinary and TD research. Elsewhere, we define TD research as “an integrative process whereby scholars and practitioners from both academic disciplines and non-academic fields work jointly to develop and use novel conceptual and methodological approaches that synthesize and extend disciplinespecific perspectives, theories, methods, and translational strategies to yield innovative solutions to particular scientific and societal problems” [3]. This definition highlights the goals not only to synthesize approaches from the contributing disciplines, but also to extend beyond these origins to produce new approaches that yield scientific innovations and findings with practical relevance to solving real-world problems.
