Interdisciplinarity and research on local issues: evidence from a developing country

Diego Chavarro (), Puay Tang () and Ismael Rafols
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Diego Chavarro: SPRU, University of Sussex, UK
Puay Tang: SPRU, University of Sussex, UK

SPRU Working Paper Series from SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School

Abstract: This paper examines the role of interdisciplinary on research pertaining to local issues. Using Colombian publications from 1991 until 2011 in the Web of Science, we investigate the relationship between the degree of interdisciplinary and the local orientation of the articles. We find that a higher degree of interdisciplinary in a publication is associated with a greater emphasis on local issues. In particular, our results support the view that research that combines cognitively disparate disciplines, what we refer to as distal interdisciplinarity, is associated with more local focus of research. We discuss the policy implications of these results in the context of national research assessments targeting excellence and socio-economic impact

Keywords: Interdisciplinary research; S&T capabilities; local knowledge; research assesment; excellence; socio-economic impact (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-dem and nep-ino
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http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/documents/2013-14-swps-chavarro-tang-rafols.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Interdisciplinarity and research on local issues: evidence from a developing country (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sru:ssewps:2013-14

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