This collection addresses two different audiences: 1) historians and philosophers of the life sciences
reflecting on collaborations across disciplines, especially as regards defining and addressing Grand
Challenges; 2) researchers and other stakeholders involved in cross-disciplinary collaborations aimed
at tackling Grand Challenges in the life and medical sciences. The essays collected here offer ideas
and resources both for the study and for the practice of goal-driven cross-disciplinary research in the
life and medical sciences. We organise this introduction in three sections. The first section provides
some background and context. The second motivates our take on this topic and then outlines the
central ideas of each paper. The third section highlights the specificity and significance of this
approach by considering: a) how this collection departs from existing literature on inter- and transdisciplinarity,
b) what is characteristic about this approach, and c) what role this suggests for the
history and philosophy of the life sciences in addressing Grand Challenges