Identifying and providing funding, training and mentoring resources for graduate students who plan to conduct cross-disciplinary research are among the principles that graduate institutions in 14 countries aim to adopt. The US Council of Graduate Schools in Washington DC sponsored an annual summit this month in St John's, Canada, on promoting best practices in graduate education, focusing on interdisciplinary research. “The questions that will advance human knowledge often lie at the boundaries of current disciplines, so interdisciplinary knowledge and ways of thinking are central to today's doctoral education,” says council president Suzanne Ortega.