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This paper analyses how the concept of sustainable development interacts with scientific disciplines. First it confronts the characteristics of academic research dealing with sustainable development to the criteria formulated by T. Kuhn for disciplines, paradigms and scientific revolutions. In this framework, sustainable development does not appear as an overarching paradigm. It is interpreted differently within several disciplines, and can modify their subjects and methods of research. In the second part of the paper, more recent theory about scientific disciplines is introduced, underlining the importance of interactions with spheres external to scientific communities. The paper suggests that a major feature of sustainable development research – that has more to deal with methods than with the subjects studied – would be to deliberately assume the interactions of science, society and policy, and to deal with their consequences. We conclude with some implications of these analyses for teaching sustainable development in higher education.