Interdisciplinarity in practice: three decades of Earth systems science workshops at the Aspen Global Change Institute

Interdisciplinarity is widely believed to be necessary to further knowledge about complex systems and inform potential solutions. Yet the practice of fostering it is not well articulated, especially by those who regularly do it. Various obstacles, including logistical, institutional, interactional and cognitive barriers, hinder interdisciplinarity. Even so, scientific agendas with societal significance, such as global change research, emerged over the twentieth century with interdisciplinary requirements at their core. In 1989, the Aspen Global Change Institute was founded as an interdisciplinary centre to further the understanding of Earth systems and their relevance to society. Here we present workshops ( n = 81) organized by the Institute over the period 1990–2022 as a reflective case study on practising interdisciplinarity. By describing our experience, along with data from participation records ( n = 2401), evaluations ( n = 1146) and publications ( n = 71), we offer this case with lessons learned as a complement to formalized scholarship on interdisciplinarity.