Introducing Methods and Techniques: Interdisciplinary methods for interdisciplinary challenges

Plants, People, Planet was launched in 2017 with a key mission to highlight the importance of plant-based research for people, society and the planet. Plants, People, Planet was also created, in part, to provide a forum for interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary research, as we recognize the immense potential for these types of approaches to provide solutions to major global challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss and food security. To support this mission and to allow us to feature even more innovative work at the interfaces and intersections of disciplines, we are delighted to launch Methods and Techniques. Methods and Techniques will provide a forum for those working at the interface between plants and society to showcase their novel interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary approaches and may report on new or improved experimental or computational methods, tools, protocols or analytical approaches that have been rigorously tested and can be readily adopted by others. As such, the inclusion of material to aid the accessibility and use of Methods and Techniques by others is essential, and this material should either be provided with the article or uploaded to a public data repository with appropriate links and identifiers included in the article itself. Methods and Techniques will also feature more narrative-style pieces, which, rather than focus on presenting new approaches or data, will provide authoritative opinions and perspectives on the methodological challenges or opportunities associated with interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary work. We encourage these types of pieces to propose solutions or pathways to overcome the challenges discussed within the work and to reflect on the future of the field in a concluding remarks/future perspectives section. Ultimately, we envisage Methods and Techniques will support the advancement of plant-based research across disciplines to provide solutions that will address major global and societal challenges. We hope that you will find this new addition to the article formats available for authors at Plants, People, Planet to be useful. As always, presubmission inquiries, suggestions and feedback are most welcome (please contact Bennett Young: [email protected]). The authors declare no conflict of interest. Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no data sets were generated or analysed during the current study.