Beyond buzzwords: The challenges of interdisciplinarity – An analysis of an interdisciplinary summer school on snakebite envenoming

Background: Interdisciplinary approaches are particularly important when it comes to complex research areas such as snakebite envenoming. To achieve the World Health Organization's (WHO) goal of halving the number of deaths and disabilities from snakebite by 2030, researchers and experts from different fields need to work together. To promote interdisciplinarity in snakebite research and educational work, a one-week hybrid summer school was organised in September 2023 at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany. The week's topics were arranged logically, from snake biology and venomics to clinical implications, new therapeutics and public policy. All lectures were held in English. Methodology/Principal Findings: Attendance was recorded for in-person and online participants, transcribed into Excel, and anonymised. Data were then summarised according to the participant's field of expertise, country of residence, and attendance at each session. Results: The summer school successfully promoted interdisciplinarity, with individuals attending from a wide range of scientific fields. However, fluctuations in attendance over the week highlight some challenges in maintaining interdisciplinarity at such events. By mode of attendance, in-person participants attended more of the sessions (76.9%) than those joining in a hybrid format (50.0%) or online only (32.0%).  Among those who did not attend all sessions, attendance was highest on Monday (77.6%) and Wednesday (81.3%) but decreased for individuals from all fields over the week. Conclusion/Significance: For future international interdisciplinary events, we suggest hybrid events with in-person and online options to encourage more international participation, supported by travel grants. However, the online experience could be improved through online networking and interdisciplinary activities. Future events should also consider hosting events in low- and middle-income countries or satellite locations. An appeal to organizers of future events is that participant data should be collected, analysed and published for continuous improvement of such interdisciplinary events. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement Yes ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: A protocol for analysis of the data was submitted to the Ethics Committee of the Hamburg State Medical Association for approval. In view of the fact that the data subject of the study was anonymised and can no longer be attributed to a human being, the committee approved the project as not requiring consultation with the Ethics Committee of the Hamburg Medical Association (2023-300415-WF). I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable. Yes The underlying data is available on request.