Integrative approaches to disease control: the value of international collaborations

One health and biodiversity issues are global and complex. As such, they require international collaboration if we hope to achieve the goal of minimising disease impacts on humans and animals, while maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem integrity. This will require motivated teams to overcome barriers to collaboration, by focusing on the proven keys to success and developing networks of biological, physical and social scientists as well as decision-makers and stakeholders. These collaborations will require facilitation by governments and international organisations. Finally, we must move towards a more holistic, transdisciplinary approach to international collaborations. New forms of knowledge, institutional structure and problem-solving require a new dialogue between science and the humanities. Transdisciplinarity serves to ground the particular biodiversity or emerging disease issue in its ecological, social and health context, and enable decision-makers to reach across agencies and disciplines to strengthen the basis for sustainable ecosystems, health and development policies. We believe that future successes in addressing complex issues such as emerging infectious diseases, loss of biodiversity, and climate change will depend on international collaborations based on transdisciplinarity