Catalyzing action towards the sustainability of deltas

•The inherent complexity and dearth of knowledge about deltas require disciplinary expertise to advance jointly with interdisciplinary collaboration, both involving teamwork.•A shared research framework has provided common language and goals, while allowing flexible and self-organizing collaborations.•Knowledge co-production workshops focusing on vulnerability and risk offer a productive venue for collaboration with regional partners and stakeholders.•Distributed research networks face challenges in terms of types of and level of interaction and hands-on collaborative work among research partners.•Deltas are sentinels of regional and global changes offering opportunities for new collaboration between and within the natural and social sciences, involving regional stakeholders.