Theatre games for environmental researchers: An activity pack for interdisciplinary mindsets

Environmental issues, from biodiversity loss to climate change, are complex, interlinked, and shaped by both social and ecological processes. Effectively understanding these issues requires interdisciplinary collaborations, involving researchers from different fields that offer distinct approaches and ideas about the nature of environmental issues, why they arise, and how they can be addressed. Bringing academic knowledge to help address environmental issues also requires engaging effectively with non-academic communities, be they policy makers, businesses or civil society members. Working across – and beyond – disciplines in this way is a complex challenge in itself. It requires researchers to develop skills and attitudes that enable them to think and act effectively together.

This activity pack – called Theatre games for environmental researchers – was developed to help researchers, organisations, and students build the habits that allow for effective interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary work. It offers ten activities designed to spark discussion, strengthen collaboration, and encourage reflection on what it means to work thoughtfully across disciplines and with non-academic communities. Each activity invites participants to play, explore, and reflect through guided discussion about the way knowledge, values, and practices intersect across disciplines. The aim is to help researchers cultivate the confidence, curiosity, and flexibility needed to work well with others: what we call an ‘interdisciplinary mindset’.

Each activity in this pack comes with step-by-step instructions and can be run in a range of settings from research group meetings and postgraduate training sessions to interdisciplinary workshops and classrooms. They can each be run as stand-alone activities or as a series, and can be run in any order. You can choose those which fit your group’s needs. Some are designed to energise and connect a group, others to prompt deeper discussion or reflection, and others do both. All invite participants to consider the relational side of interdisciplinary research: how we listen and respond, how we handle uncertainty and disagreement, and how we make meaning together across different ways of knowing.

We hope this activity pack encourages you to make space in your research for creative and reflective practice. Interdisciplinarity is not just a structure for organising knowledge, but a skillset and mindset that can be continually practiced and refined. By engaging with these activities, we invite you to explore together what it means for you to connect across disciplines in pursuit of environmental understanding and action.