This article analyses the effect of degree of interdisciplinarity on the citation impact of individual publications for four different scientific fields. We operationalise interdisciplinarity as ...disciplinary diversity in the references of a publication, and rather than treating interdisciplinarity as a monodimensional property, we investigate the separate effect of different aspects of diversity on citation impact: i.e. variety, balance and disparity. We use a Tobit regression model to examine the effect of these properties of interdisciplinarity on citation impact, controlling for a range of variables associated with the characteristics of publications. We find that variety has a positive effect on impact, whereas balance and disparity have a negative effect. Our results further qualify the separate effect of these three aspects of diversity by pointing out that all three dimensions of interdisciplinarity display a curvilinear (inverted U-shape) relationship with citation impact. These findings can be interpreted in two different ways. On the one hand, they are consistent with the view that, while combining multiple fields has a positive effect in knowledge creation, successful research is better achieved through research efforts that draw on a relatively proximal range of fields, as distal interdisciplinary research might be too risky and more likely to fail. On the other hand, these results may be interpreted as suggesting that scientific audiences are reluctant to cite heterodox papers that mix highly disparate bodies of knowledge--thus giving less credit to publications that are too groundbreaking or challenging.
Researchers holding multiple affiliations can play an important bridging role between organizations, fostering knowledge transfer and research collaboration. We propose a methodology to identify ...authors with multiple affiliations co-hosted by two organizations for a prolonged period of time, which distinguishes them from authors who change jobs or only hold short appointments. We apply this methodology to all authors and organizations residing in the Netherlands and find 626 organizations with at least one co-affiliated researcher. We perform a regression analysis of the inter-organizational network spanned by all co-affiliated researchers, and find strong negative effects of travel time. We also find that researchers who hold multiple affiliations, often cross the institutional boundaries between university, industry, government, healthcare and public research organizations. In particular, university-affiliated researchers tend to be most active in bridging to organizations in other institutional spheres. We end with some reflections for future studies and implications for science policy.
It has been well established that research is not addressing health needs in a balanced way - much more research is conducted on diseases with more burden in high-income countries than on those with ...more burden in lower-income countries. In this study, we explore whether these imbalances persist and inquire about the possible influence of three factors, namely geography, industry and publication incentives.
We use WHO data on the Global Burden of Disease as a proxy measure of health needs and bibliometric information as a proxy for research efforts. Scientific publications on diseases were collected from MEDLINE using MeSH terms to identify relevant publications. We used Web of Science to collect author affiliations and citation data. We developed a correspondence table between WHO ICD-10 and MeSH descriptors to compare global health needs and research efforts. This correspondence table is available as supplementary material.
Research output is heavily concentrated in high-income countries and is mainly focused on their health needs, resulting in a relative lack of attention to diseases in lower income countries. A new finding is that diseases with a similar burden in high- and middle-income countries are also under-researched, both globally and in relation to disease burden in high- and middle-income countries. Global industrial R&D is found to be very similar to the focus of public research. Diseases more prevalent in high-income countries generate ten-fold more research attention than those in low-income countries. We find no discernible preference towards diseases of high-income countries versus those of low-income countries in the top 25% most prestigious journals. However, in middle-income countries, citation rates are substantially lower for diseases most prevalent in low- and middle-income countries.
From a global perspective, the imbalance between research needs and research efforts persists as most of the research effort concentrates on diseases affecting high-income countries. Both pharmaceutical companies and the public sector also tend to focus on diseases with more burden in high-income countries. Our findings indicate that researchers in middle-income countries receive more citations when researching diseases more prevalent in high-income countries, and this may divert the attention of researchers in these countries from diseases more prevalent in their contexts.
•We explore the relationship between interdisciplinary research and the scientists’ engagement in four modes of university-industry interaction.•We conceptually distinguish four stylized modes of ...interaction (entrepreneurship, technology transfer, co-production and response modes) and employ three distinct indicators of interdisciplinarity.•Our results show that interdisciplinarity has a transversal influence on all four modes.•We also found that interdisciplinarity is more strongly associated to market-based compared to relational, personal-based interaction mechanisms.
Interdisciplinary research (IDR) has raised increasing expectations among scholars and policymakers about its potential to produce ground-breaking scientific contributions and satisfy societal demands. While existing research highlights that novel connections across fields is beneficial for scientific contributions with high academic impact, comparatively less is known about whether IDR is positively associated to scientists’ engagement with non-academic actors. To investigate this, we examine whether there is a systematic relationship between scientists’ IDR-orientation and their interactions with industry. We conceptually distinguish four stylized modes of interaction (firm creation, technology transfer, co-production and response modes) and employ three distinct indicators of IDR. We use data on 1,170 scientists affiliated to public research organizations in Spain, bibliometric dataset of scientists’ publications, and details of scientists’ past involvement in interactions with industry. Our results show that IDR has a transversal influence on all four modes. However, IDR-oriented scientists are more strongly associated to transactional (market-mediated) compared to relational (personal-based) interaction mechanisms; while we find no evidence of a significant difference between IDR-oriented scientists and their propensity to engage in different modes of U-I interaction according to the degree of goal specificity.
This study examines whether and how India’s research efforts address the country’s health needs. It does so by investigating the degree of alignment between the burden of diseases in India and ...research efforts being undertaken in health and biomedical sciences by Indian institutions. WHO data from Global Health Estimates on Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) is used as the indicator of disease burden, and the number of publications on Web of Science as the proxy measure of research efforts. We find that the alignment between publications and DALYs in India is much lower than in high-income countries (HICs) and considerably lower than in countries such as China or Brazil. This is due to some areas of disease having little research efforts even though they have a high burden, while others receive large amounts of attention in spite of a low burden. For example, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases contribute to ~ 23% of the disease burden in India but only have a ~ 6% share of the total publications. In contrast, cancers contribute to ~ 5% of the burden, while their publication share is almost 25%. We discuss some major driving factors behind this misalignment, such as market demand associated with diseases prevalent in HICs, the academic prestige of certain disease areas, and funding opportunities in global health. We also explore whether the disparity is due to weaknesses in healthcare delivery systems in India (e.g., in neonatal conditions) rather than a lack of research.
► Shows references cited in review chapters of authoritative handbooks can be used to identify ‘core contributions’ to a field. ► Identifies 155 core contributions in science and technology studies ...(STS) along with most prominent institutions and authors. ► Uses cluster analysis to show how quantitative studies of science and technology gradually split apart from rest of STS. ► Assesses impact of STS core contributions in different journals and fields. ► Analyses emergence and evolution of STS, identifying main phases and developments.
Science and Technology Studies (STS) is one of a number of new research fields to emerge over the last four or five decades. This paper attempts to identify its core academic contributions from the perspective of the authors of chapters in authoritative ‘handbooks’ and the references they cite. Besides identifying the most prominent publications, institutions and authors, we examine whether the core contributions can be broken down into identifiable clusters. The study also analyses the impact of these contributions by exploring the research fields, journals, and geographical location of the researchers that have cited the STS core contributions in their own work. Together, these analyses reveal a number of phases in the development of STS with periods of convergence and divergence of the field, including the gradual separation of quantitative studies of science and technology from the main body of STS. The paper ends with some conclusions about the evolution of STS, such as the role of ‘institution builders’ in developing new research fields and the structures required to hold them together.
•We present a novel taxonomy of mobility types of scientists based on bibliometric data.•Four mobility classes are presented: not mobile researchers, directional travelers, non-directional travelers ...and migrants.•Travelers are defined as those who have affiliation ties with more than one country, always maintaining a link with their country of origin.•We present a brief analysis worldwide to illustrate the potential of these mobility classes to inform science policy.•This taxonomy can be applied to several levels of analysis, demonstrating scientific mobility within nations, institutions, sectors or disciplines, as well as internationally.
This paper presents a methodological framework for developing scientific mobility indicators based on bibliometric data. We identify nearly 16 million individual authors from publications covered in the Web of Science for the 2008–2015 period. Based on the information provided across individuals’ publication records, we propose a general classification for analyzing scientific mobility using institutional affiliation changes. We distinguish between migrants--authors who have ruptures with their country of origin--and travelers--authors who gain additional affiliations while maintaining affiliation with their country of origin. We find that 3.7% of researchers who have published at least one paper over the period are mobile. Travelers represent 72.7% of all mobile scholars, but migrants have higher scientific impact. We apply this classification at the country level, expanding the classification to incorporate the directionality of scientists’ mobility (i.e., incoming and outgoing). We provide a brief analysis to highlight the utility of the proposed taxonomy to study scholarly mobility and discuss the implications for science policy.
Abstract
A current issue in mission-oriented research policy is the balance of priorities in research portfolios. In parallel, in health policies, there is a debate on shifting research away from ...biomedical treatments towards health promotion and well-being. In this study, we examine if research agendas are responsive to these demands in cardiometabolic and mental health. First, we conducted bibliometric analyses which showed that most research remains focused on biomedical and clinical approaches. In contrast, focus groups and interviews suggested that more research is needed upstream, i.e. on broader determinants of health, public health, and health systems. Most experts also saw a need for more intervention-oriented research. Furthermore, comparisons between cardiometabolic and mental health suggested that they require similar upstream knowledge in issues such as health systems, nutrition, labour, or economic conditions. We discuss the reasons for the persistence of current priorities and the implications in the context of funding strategies.
Abstract
Responding to health needs in one disease area might rely on being able to draw on research and funding oriented towards other disease areas. However, the tendency of medical research to ...cross-disease areas has received limited empirical consideration. An outbreak, in a disease area with little prior research or funding, means that any research response will necessarily be rich with cross-disease flows. This affords a setting that allows us to identify and examine the phenomenon over time. We estimate the extent to which the vaccine research community’s response to Zika virus drew on research and funding from other diseases. We find that a persistently low share of funding into Zika vaccine research was Zika-oriented. In contrast, a much higher share of knowledge inputs was oriented to Zika. The exercise serves to illustrate some general themes in priority setting for health research systems alongside some core features of vaccine innovation.
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