In this appendix, we have briefly described a particular set of conceptual and method skills, which we call Integration and Implementation Sciences (I2S). We suggest that effectively tackling real-world problems requires a new type of researcher, who can draw together discipline and practice experts, and that such researchers need a solid foundation in the skills we outline here.

We propose that I2S can provide: a) the hub around which research institutions can organise teams to investigate real-world problems; b) a baseline level of quality for such work; c) a way of transmitting new ideas and methods between groups focusing on different real-world problems; and d) a home for drawing together and further developing recurrent issues in tackling real-world problems that are not within the domain of any discipline or practice area.

In terms of the last point, we suggest that I2S covers four domains—namely, concepts and methods to enhance:

The dialogue methods we present here have been compiled as part of fleshing out the domain of the ‘integration of disciplinary and stakeholder knowledge’. We have identified, along with dialogue-based methods, four other major groups of methods: model based, product based, vision based and common metric based. As well as these integration methods, the domain also includes concepts and methods to scope, frame and set boundaries around the real-world problem being investigated, as well as to identify and resolve inevitable conflicts around epistemologies, interests, values and so on. Systems-based thinking provides the core conceptual underpinning to this domain. Finally, we argue for an agreed standard way of describing and analysing research integration and provide a simple six-question framework, which we have found to be an effective starting point.