Circling around interdisciplinarity

Peter Besselaar ()
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Peter Besselaar: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Scientometrics, 2025, vol. 130, issue 6, No 15, 3293-3311

Abstract: Abstract In this paper, we discuss Loet Leydesdorff’s extensive contributions to the understanding and measurement of interdisciplinarity. Apart from that, we summarize a series of issues in the debate about interdisciplinarity and suggest how to move forward. Leaving out the innovative work on visualization and animation, we distinguish three different approaches to measuring interdisciplinarity: (i) mapping interdisciplinary fields based on similarities between referencing patterns of sets of journals; (ii) betweenness centrality as indicator of interdisciplinarity of individual journals, and (iii) diversity of references of individual journals (and papers) as indicator of interdisciplinarity of those individual journals. After various tests the conclusion is that both the second and third approach are not useful as indicators for interdisciplinarity. Betweenness centrality measures multidisciplinarity at best, and diversity of referencing measures diversity of knowledge inputs, but not interdisciplinarity as a knowledge output. The problems with both approaches basically relate to the problem of how to define, measure and map the dynamics of research fields, which bring us back to the first approach mentioned above. We argue why it is worthwhile to develop that further in order to better understand the nature and role of interdisciplinary research.

Keywords: Interdisciplinarity; Multidisciplinarity; Mapping; Dynamics of research fields; Betweenness centrality; Journal-journal citations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s11192-025-05346-7

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