Effective climate and energy research demands collaboration across disciplinary lines—but such collaboration hinges not only on technical knowledge, but also on how we understand and use foundational concepts. Terms like resilience, behavior, scale, community, and publics often travel across domains, carrying different meanings and assumptions. Without unpacking these differences, interdisciplinary work can stall or produce misunderstandings.

This participatory workshop brings together MIT Climate Project leads, research staff, and SHASS faculty, researchers, and PhD students to initiate a shared conversation around key conceptual frameworks in climate and energy research. The goal is to begin building relationships of trust and deepen mutual understanding across disciplines through collaborative reflection on how core terms are used and interpreted.

Guided by the nomadic concepts framework—inspired by the Dutch cultural theorist Mieke Bal—participants will examine how certain ideas “travel” between disciplines, picking up new meanings and uses. Rather than fix definitions, this approach treats these concepts as dynamic and evolving, opening generative space for collaboration. Participants will explore how shared terms like implementation or publics can serve as entry points for deeper understanding of the values, assumptions, and goals embedded in different interdisciplinary research approaches.

The main goal is to co-create a shared conceptual foundation for future interdisciplinary research in climate and energy. We will also include hands-on engagement with selected tools designed to support dialogue across knowledge cultures. The outputs will inform the development of a joint SHASS–CP toolkit to support ongoing collaboration. Registration is required