No / This paper reflects on what is meant by interdisciplinary engagement in the context of two integrated urban water management research programmes in the UK and New Zealand. Different extents of interdisciplinary engagement in research teams are conceptualised on a continuum that ranges from rhetorical intentions to joint research. We discuss how interdisciplinary working in research programmes is shaped through the processes of bidding, research management and production of outputs. The paper concludes that if higher levels of interdisciplinarity are desired, they need to be specifically funded and planned for. In particular, funders may need to provide flexibility in relation to interdisciplinary outputs, which may be hard to specify at the start of a research programme.