The different facets of diversity: the case of 'interdisciplinarities' and their contrasting efects on scientific impact

Abstract

Research projects benefit from integrating various type of knowledge (interdisciplinarity). Such integration requires coordination, which impose a burden on the project. A number of scholars have proposed that there is a trade-off between the “gains” and the “costs” associated with knowledge diversity. However, diversity is a not a linear property; it has three aspects: the number, the balance and the disparity of the categories considered. How does each of these aspects of being diverse (‘interdisciplinarities’) effect the scientific impact research? In this study we investigate the effect of disciplinary diversity of references in publications in the number of citations. The results suggest that publications with highest scientific impact, have a specific type of diversity: they draw mainly on various bodies of knowledge in their cognitive proximity, but only in small amounts from distal fields. Two interpretations are proposed for the findings, one in terms of the costs associated with coordination of disparate knowledge, a second in terms of bias by readers against cognitively diverse publications. Implications for collaborations are discussed.