Transdisciplinary collaboration has the potential to accelerate innovation, by bringing together different types of expertise and experience. Effective communication is a cornerstone of meaningful collaboration in research, but can be challenging in the transdisciplinary context. By defining terms and terminologies, glossaries can facilitate the development of shared understanding across different disciplines and research fields, enhancing collaboration. However, transdisciplinary glossaries have not yet been established for neurodegenerative disease research.

To address this issue, our partner Marina Boccardi (DZNE Rostock), together with colleagues from workstreams focusing on technical development, data security, biobanking and clinical research, developed a transdisciplinary glossary for EPND. Using open-source tools, the University of Maastricht team, led by Aiara Lobo Gomes, created a glossary with Wiki-based editing and sharing principles. Terms, definitions and references were developed collaboratively, involving experts in each relevant discipline.

Currently, the transdisciplinary (TDC) glossary includes 524 entries across 8 Modules: Acronyms, Hub Framework, Data Terms, Legal, Regulatory, Biomarker, Business and Clinical research. The TDC glossary is the first in the neurodegenerative disease field. As a living tool, the aim of the this glossary is to facilitate dialogue between industry, academia and other stakeholders within and beyond EPND.

The TDC glossary can be accessed at https://bit.ly/EPND-glossary. Researchers are welcome to use the terms and definitions for their projects or publications, however EPND should be acknowledged as the original source for the specific term you use, based on the disclaimer.

For more information on the development or adaptation of our approach (which uses the open-source tool NocoDB as the base, as described in this GitHub repository) please contact us directly at info@epnd.org.