Negotiating boundaries, leadership, and integration and implementation sciences (I2S)

Imagine that you lead a team working on a complex environmental issue, that you are frustrated by the inability to easily obtain an overview of available resources, that you specifically require tools to manage the boundaries relevant to your project, and that you confront the challenge of figuring out how best to teach what you know to others. This commentary argues the case for a new discipline of Integration and Implementation Sciences (I2S) to (1) provide an overview of, and access to, all the tools and approaches used by others in tackling complex problems, (2) make it easy to find specific tools, for example, on setting the project boundaries and accommodating disciplinary colleagues and stakeholders with diverse views, and (3) provide an agreed method to document and transmit the detail of how complex problems are tackled, so that there is a more systematic way to self-reflect, learn from others, and teach. The main characteristics of I2S are described and its utility is demonstrated using the discipline of statistics as an analogy.