The advantages of interdisciplinarity in modern science
Moreno Bonaventura, Vito Latora, Vincenzo Nicosia, Pietro Panzarasa

TL;DR
This study compares specialized and interdisciplinary scientists, showing that moderate background interdisciplinarity can harm performance, but high interdisciplinarity and diverse collaborations enhance scientific success across career stages.
Contribution
It introduces a dual approach to interdisciplinarity, distinguishing between background and social aspects, and demonstrates their impact on scientific success using comprehensive data.
Findings
Highly interdisciplinary scientists outperform specialists.
Diverse collaborations correlate with higher success.
Successful scientists rapidly absorb and utilize collaborators' knowledge.
Abstract
As the increasing complexity of large-scale research requires the combined efforts of scientists with expertise in different fields, the advantages and costs of interdisciplinary scholarship have taken center stage in current debates on scientific production. Here we conduct a comparative assessment of the scientific success of specialized and interdisciplinary researchers in modern science. Drawing on comprehensive data sets on scientific production, we propose a two-pronged approach to interdisciplinarity. For each scientist, we distinguish between background interdisciplinarity, rooted in knowledge accumulated over time, and social interdisciplinarity, stemming from exposure to collaborators' knowledge. We find that, while abandoning specialization in favor of moderate degrees of background interdisciplinarity deteriorates performance, very interdisciplinary scientists outperform…
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Taxonomy
Topicsscientometrics and bibliometrics research · Evolution and Genetic Dynamics · Research Data Management Practices
