Interdisciplinary Researchers Attain Better Long-Term Funding Performance

Interdisciplinary research is experiencing a global surge, driven by the recognition that complex societal challenges and scientific innovation often arise at the intersection of disciplines. While high-impact discoveries frequently emerge from interdisciplinary collaborations, existing research suggests that interdisciplinary work often receives lower recognition and impact compared to specialized research, and it is less likely to attract funding. This study aims to reconcile these seemingly contradictory observations by examining a large dataset of research grants, providing a longer-term and broader perspective than previous studies. The study uses data from the UK's seven discipline-based national research councils, encompassing a wide range of fields, offering a comprehensive picture of the funding landscape and career trajectories of researchers. By analyzing this extensive dataset, the study seeks to determine whether the apparent disadvantages of interdisciplinary research in the short term are offset by long-term advantages in funding success. This investigation holds significant implications for researchers considering interdisciplinary careers and for funding bodies aiming to support innovative, boundary-crossing research.

Previous research has highlighted the apparent drawbacks of interdisciplinary research. Studies indicate that interdisciplinary work, particularly when involving distantly related fields, often receives fewer citations compared to specialized work. Levitt and Thelwall (2008) found that monodisciplinary articles in life sciences, health sciences, and physical sciences receive approximately twice as many citations as multidisciplinary articles. Bromham et al. (2016) found that interdisciplinary research proposals were less likely to be funded. These studies primarily focused on short-term outcomes and limited datasets, leaving open the question of whether long-term funding patterns might differ. This study aims to address this gap by analyzing a larger dataset over a longer period, providing a more complete view of the funding trajectories of interdisciplinary researchers.

The study utilized data on 44,419 research grants awarded between 2006 and 2018 by seven UK research councils. Researchers were categorized as either 'cross-council' (those receiving funding from at least two councils) or 'within-council' (those receiving funding from only one council). Network analysis was employed to examine collaboration patterns, using the research councils as nodes and links representing shared funding of investigators. The strength of the links was weighted to reflect the ratio of observed to expected co-funding based on a randomized null model. Researchers were further classified into tiers based on the total funding received by their institutions. A propensity score matching analysis was used to mitigate confounding factors (institutional ranking, number of grants, average funding value, team size, and project duration) when comparing research outcomes (publications, total citations, and citations per paper) between cross-council and within-council investigators. The analysis included matching based on career profile from 2006-2013, and the matched pairs were then compared for funding performance from 2011-2018. The study also employed normalization techniques to account for disciplinary variations and temporal changes in citation rates, using the Microsoft Academic Graph dataset to collect citation data within five years of publication.

The analysis revealed several key findings. First, there is a clear increase in cross-council activity over time, indicating a growing trend towards interdisciplinary research in the UK. Second, cross-council investigators consistently occupy central positions within the collaboration network, showing higher degree, closeness, and betweenness centrality, indicating their role as knowledge brokers. Third, despite a lower initial publication impact (fewer citations) compared to within-council investigators, cross-council researchers demonstrated a significant long-term advantage in funding performance. Using propensity score matching to control for confounding variables, the study found that cross-council investigators obtained more grants with higher funding values and larger team sizes in the years following the matching period (2011-2018) than their within-council counterparts. These findings held across different time periods and alternative definitions of interdisciplinarity. The difference in citation counts between cross-council and within-council researchers was statistically significant. However, the long-term funding advantage for cross-council investigators was clearly established, suggesting a delayed but substantial return on investment in interdisciplinary research.

The findings suggest that the initial lower publication impact of interdisciplinary research may be a temporary cost of engaging in knowledge brokerage across disciplinary boundaries. Building collaborations and establishing common communication strategies requires significant effort, potentially affecting short-term productivity. However, this investment pays off in the long run, through access to a wider range of funding opportunities and higher funding values. This supports the idea that interdisciplinary research may yield greater recognition and impact over longer time scales than specialized research. The five-year citation window used in the study might underestimate the ultimate impact of interdisciplinary publications. The findings underscore the need for funding bodies and evaluation mechanisms to recognize the long-term benefits of interdisciplinary research, and to support researchers pursuing this path despite its initial challenges.

This study demonstrates that interdisciplinary researchers, although experiencing lower immediate publication impact, achieve superior long-term funding success. This suggests that funding agencies should consider long-term impacts when assessing proposals, and that researchers should persevere in the face of initial challenges associated with interdisciplinary research. Future research could investigate the optimal strategies for fostering successful interdisciplinary collaborations and developing evaluation metrics that appropriately capture the long-term value of interdisciplinary work.

The study’s reliance on UK research council data limits the generalizability of the findings to other national contexts or funding systems. The five-year citation window used to assess publication impact could underestimate the true long-term impact of interdisciplinary publications. Additionally, the categorization of researchers as either strictly 'cross-council' or 'within-council' might be an oversimplification of the complex spectrum of interdisciplinarity. Future work should consider more nuanced approaches to measuring the degree of interdisciplinarity.