RCDC Research Roots & Wings Roundtable II: Social Work Research & Transdisciplinary Science: Navigating Epistemic Contribution and Scientific Collaborations to Solve Complex Problems

The Grand Challenges for Social Work are a reminder of the need for social work professionals and more specifically researchers ready to engage in transdisciplinary collaborations. Transdisciplinary team science has been proposed as a strategy for addressing complex societal problems including inequity, health disparities, and social isolation. Different from interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity is rooted in six core principles: issue- or problem-centered, holistic, transcendence, emergence, innovation, and flexibility (Leavy, 2011). As such, transdisciplinary team science brings scholars from different disciplines and involves the integration and synthesis of knowledge and forms of knowing from across disciplines, which are unhindered by the theoretical and methodological restrictions of disciplinary boundaries and aims to catalyze innovation to address complex problems through collaboration (Nurius et al., 2017).

Although the last decade has seen a shift towards scientific collaboration, research training efforts have not consistently kept pace. Social work researchers, particularly early career researchers, have been continually engaged in transdisciplinary work, however, the position of social work in team science, epistemic contribution of social work in transdisciplinary knowledge, and the recognition of social work collaboration are little understood (Cootes et al. 2021; Moore et al., 2018). In addition, social work research remains insular when it comes to navigating the evident tensions in transdisciplinary research teams (Abendstern et al., 2022). Moreover, institutional rewards structures are not always designed to support the career development of team scientists nor are they designed to incentivize transdisciplinary team science. Successful participation in cross-disciplinary teams requires a willingness to navigate operational challenges related to interpersonal, interpersonal, cross-disciplinary, communication, and collaborative skills, depth of disciplinary expertise, as well as the ability to give and receive challenges to integrating new modes of thinking (Kemp & Nurius, 2015).

This roundtable will bring together a group of transdisciplinary team scientists at various stages of their academic careers to share their experiences navigating and negotiating scientific collaborations. In addition to sharing the impact of the research efforts designed to address complex societal problems, the team of scientists in this roundtable will also share actionable strategies that researchers can utilize to advocate for institutional support for team science and recognition of their contributions. Please bring your own experiences and perspectives to add to this timely conversation!