Monitieteisiä

Monitieteisiä is a Finnish adjective form used to describe activities, studies, or outputs that involve more than one scientific discipline. The root term monitieteinen means multidisciplinary. Monitieteisiä is the plural partitive form employed when the noun it modifies is in plural partitive, as in monitieteisiä tutkimusprojekteja or monitieteisiä oppimisympäristöjä.

Practically, monitieteisiä approaches integrate methods, theories, and data from several disciplines to address complex questions that cannot be adequately answered by a single field. They are common in higher education, research programs, and policy projects, and may combine natural sciences, social sciences, engineering, and humanities. Examples include ecosystem services assessment that brings together biology and economics, or urban planning that fuses geography, sociology, and civil engineering.

Monitieteisyys differs from interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in emphasis. Multidisciplinary (monitieteinen) work often maintains disciplinary boundaries while coordinating contributions, whereas interdisciplinary work emphasizes integrated methodologies and theories. Transdisciplinary efforts extend beyond academia to include stakeholders such as industry, government, and communities.

Benefits include broader perspectives, innovative solutions, and more robust problem framing. Challenges include coordinating diverse teams, aligning terminologies and quality standards, and managing competing priorities across disciplines. In Finland, monitieteisiä approaches are supported in universities and research centers as a means to tackle societal challenges.