Abstract: The latter part of the twentieth century was marked by public anxiety about a myriad of social problems including economic development, environmental quality, health care, poverty, violence, school failure that were affecting the lives of vulnerable children, adolescents, adults, families, and communities. The potential role of scientific knowledge about human development in addressing these issues resulted in growing interest in what has been termed applied developmental science. In order to build interdisciplinary bridges and accomplish the collaboration of university and community, applied developmental science includes several defining features: developmental systems theory, diversity, longitudinal methodology, the normative developmental process, reciprocity of knowledge generation and knowledge application, and developmental interventions and enhancement programs. Under the new outreach research paradigm of applied developmental science, knowledge advances as a function of collaborations and partnerships between universities and communities such that the scientists and the children, families, and communities that they seek to understand and help are defining problems, methods, and solutions together. Applied developmental science is attracting the increasing interest of both policymakers and the private and public founders of applied research. Moreover, it is building a set of moral norms for the interdisciplinary research in the field

Key words: the developmental contextualism, knowledge production and application, public policy, children and adolescents