While transdisciplinarity offers a way to tackle complex social-ecological challenges, transdisciplinary research is a challengingtask in itself. The integration of research methods across academic disciplines, the collaboration between researchers andpractitioners, and the need to balance societal and disciplinary academic impacts pose many difficulties even to experienced applied scientists and even more so to early-career researchers. Drawing on existing literature, an early-career researcher workshop, and our own experience as junior researchgroup leaders, we discuss specific challenges and respective solution strategies of transdisciplinary research within the context of sustainability.

This article was published in GAIA - Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society (4/2018), pages 379 till 386. It can be accessed here .