New ACCESS/IES Toolkit for collaborative working

Over the past year, ACCESS and the Institution for Environmental Sciences (IES) have been working together on the Environmental Social Science in Interdisciplinary Working project to strengthen interdisciplinary working between environmental and social scientists, equipping both communities with the tools and insights needed to work more effectively together on urgent environmental issues.

They have developed a toolkit for collaborative working, which provides a practical framework and supporting resources to build more effective interdisciplinary collaborations in projects spanning research, policy, and practice.

The toolkit will be launched at the IES’s flagship conference, Dialogue Between Disciplines on 22 September 2026, where an interactive, skill-building workshop will introduce the framework and related resources. 

The toolkit directly addresses discussions at previous conferences highlighting the need for more practical resources to support interdisciplinary working and systems thinking approaches in environmental work, as well as the need to forge greater links with environmental social science. 

The project has brought together environmental and social scientists representing different environmental fields to co-develop the toolkit through interactive roundtable workshops, building in cross-sectoral expertise and insights. 

The toolkit comprises of a set of six principles to help bridge disciplinary and sectoral boundaries, with each principle supported by practical questions, prompts, and co-produced resources that will help teams and individuals navigate different phases of collaborative working, from project design through to evaluation and reflection.

Attendees of the Dialogue Between Disciplines conference will be the first to explore the new toolkit and benefit from a tailored workshop by the project co-leads Professor Birgitta Gatersleben (ACCESS Co-Director, University of Surrey), Anita Lateano (ACCESS Fellow, University of Westminster), Ethny Childs (Head of Communities & Partnerships, IES) and Amy Bond (Communities & Membership Engagement Officer, IES).

Read more about the Dialogue Between Disciplines conference here