Transdisciplinary research has gained new momentum in recent years. Several new research formats have been developed and tested, primarily motivated by new funding opportunities, and based on new initiatives from research communities. These new formats comprise real-world lab research, new approaches to academic qualification, new approaches to innovation co-development, and the exploration of new relationships between science and society. In this paper, we considered real-world labs, advanced graduate schools, innovation groups and recent developments in the field of citizen science. We analyzed and compared these formats with respect to their novelty in an effort to develop and explore overarching hypotheses for transdisciplinary research, for example, with respect to potentials and paths of impact. This was all done with the aim of creating oversight to promote further conceptual development in the increasingly fragmented field of transdisciplinary research.