Research institutions are increasingly expected to align their activities with societal goals framing engagement as a moral and institutional responsibility. In this context, collaborative research modes such as transdisciplinarity or participatory research have gained growing attention as formats designed to bridge scientific and societal knowledge production. These approaches aim to co-produce actionable knowledge across disciplinary and institutional boundaries, fostering mutual learning and relevance. Yet they also raise the question of how scientific autonomy and quality - understood as credibility, methodological rigour, and analytical distance - can be maintained when science becomes directly involved in societal problem-solving..

This paper examines these tensions and proposes a framework of reflexive boundary work to navigate them. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies, transdisciplinary research is conceptualised not as a neutral bridge between science and society, but as a situated intervention within normatively charged problem spaces. It argues that productive collaboration requires the explicit negotiation of values, interests, and epistemic commitments rather than their dissolution. Through the lens of boundary work (Gieryn 1995) and boundary objects (Star/Griesemer 1989), the paper demonstrates how researchers can construct structured zones of engagement that allow science and society to interact without collapsing into advocacy or technocracy.

In doing so, the analysis highlights the dual role of researchers as both facilitators and analysts of these encounters - responsible not only for generating knowledge, but also for sustaining its epistemic integrity. Collaborative research, in this view, becomes a form of reflexive normativity: it acknowledges the value-laden nature of research while maintaining critical distance through transparency, methodological discipline, and the cultivation of epistemic pluralism. The paper thus contributes to debates on the ethics and responsibility of research by situating the normative orientation of collaborative research within the broader question of how universities can remain spaces of critical autonomy and collective reflection.