To understand complex societal transformations, scholars have called for more interdisciplinary research in which researchers from various disciplines collaborate. To support the implementation of such collaborations, we introduce a novel typology of interdisciplinary collaborations developed from the literature and from structured reflection on our own research experience. The typology distinguishes (I) common base, (II) common destination, and (III) sequential link type of interdisciplinary collaborations. Common base refers to an interdisciplinary collaboration at one research stage that later separates into parallel disciplinary work; common destination to a collaboration where separate disciplinary work feeds into joint interdisciplinary work at the next stage; and sequential link to a completed stage of disciplinary research that provides the basis for research in another discipline. We illustrate the typology with a case study of interdisciplinary collaborations in a research project that studied the potential for an evidence-based transformation of agricultural pesticide governance. The project involved researchers from seven natural, health, and social science disciplines who developed a process for forming and maintaining interdisciplinary collaborations. We provide five examples of interdisciplinary collaborations from the project, explaining for each its practical design and implementation, its contribution to overall research goals, and related opportunities and challenges. The examples show that the typology can systematize the thinking about interdisciplinary collaborations and enable critical reflection about interdisciplinary research design and implementation. Based on our reflections as early-career researchers, we conclude with lessons that can inform future interdisciplinary research projects on agri-food transformation and beyond.

Anticipating policy instrument preferences can be an important step in policy design to address pressing sustainability problems. But studying preferences for policy instruments is a difficult task because sustainability problems involve a non-negligible degree of tradeoffs and uncertainty. We therefore study the role of actors’ underlying ideologies (policy core beliefs) and risk attitudes in forming their preferences for different instruments. Combining the advocacy coalition framework with multi-attribute utility theory, both ideologies and attitudes toward uncertain policy consequences can influence instrument preferences. So far, policy studies literature has paid little attention to trade-offs between policy core beliefs or risk attitudes. Using Bayesian regression models on data from actors in Swiss pesticide risk reduction policy, we found that attitudes toward trade-offs and risk are indeed relevant to explain preferences for different regulatory and market-based instruments addressing agricultural pesticide use. Therefore, when designing policies for sustainability problems, considering the relative importance of policy core beliefs for different actors can help to find effective and broadly supported solutions. In addition, risk attitudes should be considered when policy design involves more coercive and stimulative policy instruments.

Agricultural pesticide use is a wicked sustainability challenge: Trade-offs exist between health, environmental, agro-economic, and socio-political objectives. Various actors involved have diverse beliefs regarding these trade-offs and policies to address the challenge. But to what extent does the agreement or disagreement between actors reflect belief similarities or differences, and thus, the formation of advocacy coalitions? To answer this question, the study draws on the advocacy coalition framework and investigates data from 54 key actors in the case of Swiss pesticide policy. The study explores the relationship between the actors' (dis)agreement relations and their beliefs using Random Forests. Coalitions are identified through block modeling and beliefs based on multi-attribute value theory. The study shows that the two relations are a good proxy for identifying coalitions with conflict lines concerning beliefs and presents an approach to exploring ideological reasons behind (dis)agreement relations that supports identifying conflicting beliefs relevant to future policy solutions.

Calls for supporting sustainability through more and better research rest on an incomplete understanding of scientific evidence use. We argue that a variety of barriers to a transformative impact of evidence arises from diverse actor motivations within different stages of evidence use. We abductively specify this variety in policy and practice arenas for three actor motivations (truth-seeking, sense-making, and utility-maximizing) and five stages (evidence production, uptake, influence on decisions, effects on sustainability outcomes, and feedback from outcome evaluations). Our interdisciplinary synthesis focuses on the sustainability challenge of reducing environmental and human health risks of agricultural pesticides. It identifies barriers resulting from (1) truth-seekers’ desire to reduce uncertainty that is complicated by evidence gaps, (2) sense-makers’ evidence needs that differ from the type of evidence available, and (3) utility-maximizers’ interests that guide strategic evidence use. We outline context-specific research–policy–practice measures to increase evidence use for sustainable transformation in pesticides and beyond.