Interdisciplinarity as a multidimensional concept: its measure in three different research areas

Luis Sanz-Menéndez, María Bordons and M Angeles Zulueta

Research Evaluation, 2001, vol. 10, issue 1, 47-58

Abstract: Interdisciplinarity is analyzed in three different research areas: pharmacology and pharmacy, cardiovascular system and materials science, using data from a survey to Spanish scientists. The study focuses on three complementary dimensions: diversity in personal training and research specialization of scientists; research practices and behavior of the groups; and the cognitive inputs and outputs of the research activity. Interdisciplinarity emerges as a double-edged process: of jumping into a new area with people of different disciplines, in coherence with the traditional disciplinary research teams; and of specialization in a field traditionally dominated by a single group of disciplinary backgrounds, in which researchers from different areas join the teams. Thus specialization-fragmentation-hybridization all come together. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Date: 2001
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