Interdisciplinary work is much in demand from policy-makers and research funding bodies alike. Understanding social phenomena is said to require a move by the different sciences beyond their disciplinary silos and some of the most significant breakthroughs in our knowledge and understanding occur at the edges of disciplines. At the same time, individual career incentives usually demand publications in each respective discipline’s ‘top ten’ journals, offering a powerful counterweight to any attempt at working and publishing across disciplines. One way to address these largely incompatible pressures is to seek key concepts that appeal to a diversity of disciplines and attempt to establish a structured environment for conversations and research.
