Abstract
This article addresses the difficulty to introduce and settle multidisciplinarity in environmental researches within and among the South-Mediterranean environmental research national communities. Moreover, this work attends to assess the internal and external structural factors treating such complex issues in rural, urban and periurban contexts and finally the connections and dependences over these components. Throughout a series of programs, projects and actions having involved scientists and scholars from Algeria, France, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia, some common patterns can be observed despite notable differences in environmental and political contexts. Thus, the main common issues involve funding matters (budget reductions and less versatility), administrative and social hierarchy, relatively small connection with public services and community representatives and finally the reluctance shown by many researchers to make data available for the community. Nevertheless, the fact that national and international (Arabic and French speaking sphere) researcher's communities have progressively built mutual knowledge thanks to different collaborations, is a major achievement sustaining the multidisciplinarity in the environmental research. Indeed, this allowed the elaboration of sustainability metrics, demarches and procedures for assessing environmentally and socioeconomically complex issues.