The Science and Technologies for Phosphorus Sustainability (STEPS) Center is a convergence research center that brings together faculty, postdoctoral scholars, graduate and undergraduate students across multiple disciplines and academic institutions to work in transdisciplinary teams on research related to sustainable phosphorus use and management. Convergence research requires developing shared language, research questions and goals to co-create the knowledge needed to address complex societal challenges. Reflective, interdisciplinary exercises help our center develop these shared understandings across disciplines and increase our convergence capacity. Literature on interdisciplinary collaboration has emphasized the importance of creating such opportunities where concepts and artifacts of different fields can be discussed explicitly.

To address this need, we developed a retreat for a group of 40 researchers from across the STEPS community to integrate their unique perspectives to contribute to research brainstorming, developing unique projects and outcomes related to sustainable phosphorus management in South Florida. The two-day retreat began with a day of field excursions and informational presentations to provide context for the research challenges specific to the region. The second day participants were assigned to one of five groups with a designated facilitator to brainstorm a "big idea" chosen based on discussions the previous day. Using color-coded post-it notes to record concepts, project ideas, data needs, existing project contributions, related impact opportunities and stakeholders. Groups then rotated through the other "big ideas" to add their own contributions and identify connections between projects. From this work a knowledge map was generated that visualizes project connections based on shared data needs, impact opportunities, stakeholders, and methods.

Knowledge maps are generally developed as visual aids to identify knowledge flows and gaps within an establishment. Although the concept of knowledge mapping itself is not new, methods to develop knowledge maps are emerging that identify and illustrate the connections between disparate information including knowledge sources, flows and generation for complex systems and organizations. Here we demonstrate a knowledge mapping process to integrate the different perspectives across a diverse research team and provide examples of the visualization. The process and resulting visualizations allow the research team members to recognize existing or potential resources for their individual projects, where they can support developing knowledge with other project groups, and where knowledge gaps still need to be addressed to answer shared research questions.