This article draws on the experience of the multi-institution, multi-disciplinary research programme, Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies, funded by the AHRC under its Open World Research Initiative, to argue that research in modern languages has important things to say about key issues of our time. This implies a challenge-based model for research conducted in an interdisciplinary framework. As Klein and Newell (1983) argue, interdisciplinary studies address topics that are too broad or complex to be dealt with by a single discipline but, drawing on disciplinary perspectives, seek to integrate their insights into a more comprehensive perspective. The approach is illustrated through four case studies relating to conflict and peace-building, linguistic rights and inequalities, health and wellbeing, and social cohesion.