Collaborative Research: Who are Interdisciplinary STEM Doctoral Graduates? Exploring and Assessing Antecedents and Economic Consequences

康奈尔大学（Cornell university）和俄亥俄州立大学（Ohio State university）的研究人员将运用一个经济学框架，对早期、中期和后期职业博士学生和学位持有者选择跨学科论文研究的风险、回报和收益进行评估。利用来自获得博士学位调查、博士学位获得者调查和创新与科学研究所的数据，他们将比较跨学科研究的不同定义，并分析和绘制有关职业成果的趋势。这项研究将为博士生及其导师提供新的见解，帮助他们了解在STEM领域完成跨学科论文的人所面临的职业水平影响。该项目支持美国国家科学基金会对“融合研究大构想”的优先排序，以及发展一支能够在复杂问题上进行跨学科解决方案导向工作的劳动力队伍的需求。拟议项目的目标是利用丰富的数据源来提高对什么是STEM跨学科研究及其衡量方式的理解，跟踪在STEM中进行跨学科论文的个人特征的纵向变化，量化经济成果，并研究在STEM中进行跨学科论文的人的职业道路。具体的研究问题是：(1)跨学科的不同定义在多大程度上导致跨学科研究频率测量的变化，这些测量是如何随时间变化的？(2)哪些人口和社会经济因素有助于解释在STEM中完成跨学科论文研究的决定，这些因素如何随时间变化？(3)完成STEM跨学科论文的个人寻求和获得终身职位的可能性是大还是小？(4)随着时间的推移，完成STEM跨学科论文的人的薪水会以与非学科同行相同、更慢还是更快的速度增长吗？研究人员将主要使用定量分析技术和方程建模来解决这些问题。该项目将有助于提高学生个人和他们所学习的机构未来的职业准备。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Researchers at Cornell and Ohio State Universities will apply an economic framework to examine the risks, rewards, and benefits of the choice to pursue interdisciplinary dissertation research among early, mid- and later career Ph.D. students and degree holders. Using data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates, Survey of Doctorate Recipients, and the Institute for Research on Innovation & Science, they will compare competing definitions of interdisciplinary research and analyze and map trends regarding career outcomes. The research will generate new insights for Ph.D. students and their advisors on career-level effects faced by those who complete interdisciplinary dissertations in STEM fields. The project supports the NSF prioritization of the Convergence Research Big Idea and the need to develop a workforce that can conduct cross-disciplinary solution-oriented work on complex problems. The objectives of the proposed project are to utilize rich data sources to improve understanding of what constitutes interdisciplinary research in STEM and how it is measured, to track changes longitudinally in the characteristics of individuals who conduct interdisciplinary dissertations in STEM, to quantify economic outcomes, and to study the career paths of those who conduct interdisciplinary dissertations in STEM. The specific research questions are (1) to what degree do differing definitions of interdisciplinarity yield variation in the measurement of interdisciplinary research frequency, and how do these measures vary over time? (2) Which demographic and socio-economic factors help explain the decision to complete interdisciplinary dissertation research in STEM, and how do these change over time? (3) Do individuals who complete interdisciplinary dissertations in STEM seek and earn tenure with greater or lesser probability? and (4) Over time, will the salary of people who complete an interdisciplinary dissertation in STEM grow at the same rate, slower, or faster than their non-disciplinary peers? The researchers will address the questions using primarily quantitative analytical techniques and equation modeling. The project will help improve future career preparation for individual students and the institutions where they study.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.