Knowledge integration is often considered a key characteristic of inter- and transdisciplinary teamwork, distinguishing it from other forms of cross-disciplinary approaches such as multidisciplinarity (Klein 2017; Pohl et al. 2021). As such, conducting inter- and transdisciplinary research demands knowledge integration in practice. However, integration is often highly challenging and a bottleneck to engage in inter- and transdisciplinary research (Godemann 2008; Lawrence et al. 2022; Cairns, Hielscher, and Light 2020). Therefore, guiding, leading, supporting, facilitating, and engaging in inter- and transdisciplinary teamwork asks for support in knowledge integration (Hoffmann, Weber, and Mitchell 2022). Several tools and approaches that support knowledge integration processes in practice have been developed and are described in the literature, such as the CoNavigator tool (Lindvig, Hillersdal, and Earle 2017) and Toolbox Dialogue (Hubbs, O’Rourke, and Orzack 2021; Eigenbrode et al. 2007), and step-wise integration process detailed by Repko & Szostak (2020). However, integration is also understood as a complex, open-ended, contextual, and plural phenomenon (Pohl et al. 2021), that can be described in terms of its inputs, processes and outcomes (O’Rourke, Crowley, and Gonnerman 2016). This raises the question how to support inter- and transdisciplinary teams in knowledge integration by providing practical support while also doing justice to this complex and plural understanding of knowledge integration. We experienced that talking about integration through metaphors enriched conversations and provided language to discuss topics that were otherwise hard to grasp. It helped speak in practical terms to makes sense of success factors, barriers, and interventions, while also connecting it to more abstract reflection on its relevance and value for inter- and transdisciplinary research. As such, we experienced to hit a middle ground between mechanistic or algorithmic understandings that may mask its complexity, and the mystification of emergence that may paralyze efforts to understand and intervene integration processes. We will explore the diversity of metaphors that participants use in their own practices and consider meaningful to (collectively) make sense of and converse about collaboration and integration processes. We will exchange metaphors and explore the possibilities and boundaries of different metaphors. What do different metaphors foreground and what do they mask? (Lakoff & Johnson, 2008) What (implicit) meanings of inter- and transdisciplinarity, of knowledge, of integration, or of collaboration do they carry? Which metaphors could you add to your toolbox to highlight other aspects, and further enrich your thinking and conversations about integration and collaboration? By engaging with these questions, we aim to achieve the following: - Participants exchange and collect different metaphors for inter- and transdisciplinarity and knowledge integration and integration to bring to their own teamwork contexts; - Participants map which characteristics different metaphors highlight and mask to become aware of implicit meanings of assumptions they may carry; and - Partiicipants explore how metaphors can give language for teamwork and how they can mediate collective meaning-making in teams as to be inspire how metaphors may inform and play a role in their own teamwork contexts. We particularly experienced the metaphor of food and cooking to be valuable to think of knowledge integration processes. What thinking of integration in terms of cooking brings us, is that cooking is a process of transformation(s) in which distinct inputs (ingredients) are combined into a new whole (dish) which has new properties (emergence). Although recipes can be useful to create tasty dishes, the generalized skill of cooking goes beyond following a recipe. It requires expertise and competencies, and a universal blueprint cannot be provided. So, cooking and food metaphors are one domain of metaphors that we will further explore. Through highly interactive and non-conventional workforms, we will collectively map the metaphorical space through which we can make sense of (inter- and transdisciplinary) integration and collaboration. References Cairns, Rose, Sabine Hielscher, and Ann Light. 2020. “Collaboration, Creativity, Conflict and Chaos: Doing Interdisciplinary Sustainability Research.” Sustainability Science 15 (6): 1711–21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-020-00784-z. 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