Interdisciplinary research has consistently lower funding success
Interdisciplinary research has consistently lower funding success
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DOI：
10.1038/nature18315
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发表时间：
2016-06-30
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Hua, Xia
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bromham, Lindell;Dinnage, Russell;Hua, Xia
跨学科研究被广泛认为是创新的温室，也是解决气候变化等复杂问题的唯一可行方法(1，2)。跨学科研究的一个障碍是人们普遍认为，跨学科项目比那些关注范围较窄的项目更不可能得到资助(3，4)。然而，这一普遍持有的信念很难进行客观评估，部分原因是缺乏可用于资助申请数据的跨学科程度的可比量化衡量标准(1)。在这里，我们通过使用生物多样性指标来比较研究方案跨越不同领域的程度，该指标捕捉不同领域的相对代表性(平衡)及其差异程度(差异)。澳大利亚研究理事会的发现计划提供了一个理想的测试案例，因为单一的年度全国性竞争性资助计划涵盖了所有学科的基础研究，包括艺术、人文和科学。使用连续5年向该计划提交的所有18,476项提案的数据，包括成功和不成功的申请，我们表明，跨学科程度越高，获得资金的可能性就越低。即使考虑到合作者的数量、主要研究领域和机构类型，跨学科的负面影响也是显著的。这是第一次对跨学科研究提案的成功率进行大规模量化评估。跨学科距离度量可以有效地评估研究资金的趋势，并可用于确定需要适用于跨学科研究的评估战略的建议(5)。
Interdisciplinary research is widely considered a hothouse for innovation, and the only plausible approach to complex problems such as climate change(1,2). One barrier to interdisciplinary research is the widespread perception that interdisciplinary projects are less likely to be funded than those with a narrower focus(3,4). However, this commonly held belief has been difficult to evaluate objectively, partly because of lack of a comparable, quantitative measure of degree of interdisciplinarity that can be applied to funding application data(1). Here we compare the degree to which research proposals span disparate fields by using a biodiversity metric that captures the relative representation of different fields (balance) and their degree of difference (disparity). The Australian Research Council's Discovery Programme provides an ideal test case, because a single annual nationwide competitive grants scheme covers fundamental research in all disciplines, including arts, humanities and sciences. Using data on all 18,476 proposals submitted to the scheme over 5 consecutive years, including successful and unsuccessful applications, we show that the greater the degree of interdisciplinarity, the lower the probability of being funded. The negative impact of interdisciplinarity is significant even when number of collaborators, primary research field and type of institution are taken into account. This is the first broad-scale quantitative assessment of success rates of interdisciplinary research proposals. The interdisciplinary distance metric allows efficient evaluation of trends in research funding, and could be used to identify proposals that require assessment strategies appropriate to interdisciplinary research(5).