Impact of Granting Research Fund on Interdisciplinarity of Research Outcomes

在本研究项目的第一部分中，通过使用每个领域的研究出版物的元数据，对研究的跨学科性及其对解决三个选定研究领域（纳米药物递送，合成生物学和自动驾驶汽车）中新兴技术问题的贡献之间的关系进行了实证研究。这项研究发现，跨学科研究独特地有助于解决三个研究领域中的每一个新兴技术课题。从这一发现，它认为，更积极的跨学科研究的资金支持需要加速新技术的出现。本研究发表在Research Evaluation上。第二部分，探讨研究经费分配在跨学科研究促进技术创新中的作用。实证分析基于2010年70万篇期刊论文的元数据。通过对论文的跨学科性与其技术影响力之间的相关性分析，发现只有在资助项目的背景下，跨学科研究才能对技术发展产生更大的影响力。这一发现表明，资金分配过程的功能作为一个机构的工具，有选择地支持跨学科的研究，可能有技术的影响。这一发现是在与格鲁吉亚理工学院的同事举行的在线研讨会上提出的，该研究论文目前正在一份期刊上进行审查。

In the first part of this research project, the relationship between the interdisciplinarity of research and its contribution to addressing emerging technological issues within three selected research domains (Nano-enable drug delivery, Synthetic biology, and Autonomous vehicles) was empirically examined by using the metadata of the research publications in each field. This research discovered that interdisciplinary research distinctively contributes to addressing emerging technological topics in each of the three research domains. From this finding, It is argued that more active funding supports for interdisciplinary research need to accelerate the emergence of new technology. This research has been published in Research Evaluation.In the second part, I examine the role of research funding allocations in the way interdisciplinary research contributes to technological innovation. The empirical analysis is based on the metadata of the 0.7 million journal papers in 2010. My analysis on the correlation between a research paper's interdisciplinarity and its technological impact shows that interdisciplinary research has been more impactful to technology development only when the research was originated from funded projects. This finding suggests that the funding allocation process functions as an institutional instrument for selectively supporting interdisciplinary research that could have a technology impact. This finding was presented in an online workshop with colleagues at Georgia Tech and the research paper is currently under review in a journal.