The Tobacco Etiology Research Network was a transdisciplinary research network that focused on etiology of tobacco use and dependence.

Transdisciplinary research networks serve as research institutes without walls, bringing together highly accomplished researchers from a variety of disciplinary traditions to:

• Ask questions not otherwise able to be addressed.
• Formulate new, comprehensive, and more integrated conceptual and theoretical frameworks.
• Design research capable of capturing a wider range of interacting forces.
• Develop methods able to handle data from many domains, levels of analysis and time frames.

Key Results
The program brought leading researchers from a variety of perspectives and disciplines to work collaboratively on a regular basis for a period of eight years.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) program staff selected Richard Clayton, Ph.D., professor of sociology and director of he Center for Prevention Research at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, as chair of the network. A planning team selected individuals representing 10 different disciplines to form the network core team.

According to Richard Clayton, the following were the key results from the national program:

• New integrative ways of thinking about tobacco etiology, use and dependence, as captured in creative theories, constructs and research designs.
• New methods for collecting, handling, analyzing and interpreting data resulting from the kind of research pursued by the research network.
• Changes in how participants in the network think about, approach and conduct research.
• The recruitment to tobacco research of established investigators from other fields.
• The training of a cadre of future researchers knowledgeable about the state of the art of tobacco research and committed to the collaborative ethos.
• Advancement of the field of tobacco research by participants through their publications, presentations, training of students and fellows, service on peer-review panels and journal review boards, and receipt of other funding for their work (see Appendix 3).

Funding
The national program was authorized by the RWJF Board of Trustees in January 1996 for $8 million.