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How to evaluate the degree of interdisciplinarity of an institution?

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  • Lorenzo Cassi

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, OST - Observatoire des Sciences et des Techniques - HCERES - Haut Conseil de l'Évaluation de la Recherche et de l'Enseignement Supérieur)

  • Wilfriedo Mescheba

    (OST - Observatoire des Sciences et des Techniques - HCERES - Haut Conseil de l'Évaluation de la Recherche et de l'Enseignement Supérieur)

  • Elisabeth de Turckheim

    (OST - Observatoire des Sciences et des Techniques - HCERES - Haut Conseil de l'Évaluation de la Recherche et de l'Enseignement Supérieur, Délégation à l'évaluation - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique)

Abstract

The Stirling index of the set of references of the corpus documents is widely used in the literature on interdisciplinary research and is defined as the integration score of the corpus under study. Such an indicator is relevant at the scale of a research institution, however, there is a gap between the integration scores of individual documents, and a global score computed on the whole set of references. The difference between the global index and the average of individual document indexes carries another relevant information about the corpus: it measures the diversity between the reference profiles of the corpus documents. It is, therefore, named between article index whereas the average of the individual article indexes is called within article index. The statistical properties of these two indexes as well as of the global index are derived from a general approximation method for distributions and lead to statistical tests which can be used to make meaningful comparisons between an institution indexes and benchmark values. The two dimensions of the global index provide a more acute information on the interdisciplinary practices of an institution researchers in a given research domain and is, therefore, likely to contribute to strategic and management issues.

Suggested Citation

  • Lorenzo Cassi & Wilfriedo Mescheba & Elisabeth de Turckheim, 2014. "How to evaluate the degree of interdisciplinarity of an institution?," Post-Print hal-00987714, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00987714
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-014-1280-0
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://paris1.hal.science/hal-00987714
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    2. Cottafava, Dario & Ascione, Grazia Sveva & Corazza, Laura & Dhir, Amandeep, 2022. "Sustainable development goals research in higher education institutions: An interdisciplinarity assessment through an entropy-based indicator," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 138-155.
    3. Giulio Giacomo Cantone, 2024. "How to measure interdisciplinary research? A systemic design for the model of measurement," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(8), pages 4937-4982, August.
    4. Loet Leydesdorff & Caroline S. Wagner & Lutz Bornmann, 2018. "Betweenness and diversity in journal citation networks as measures of interdisciplinarity—A tribute to Eugene Garfield," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(2), pages 567-592, February.
    5. Shengli Deng & Sudi Xia, 2020. "Mapping the interdisciplinarity in information behavior research: a quantitative study using diversity measure and co-occurrence analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(1), pages 489-513, July.
    6. Erin Leahey & Sondra N. Barringer & Misty Ring-Ramirez, 2019. "Universities’ structural commitment to interdisciplinary research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(3), pages 891-919, March.
    7. Xuefeng Wang & Zhinan Wang & Ying Huang & Yun Chen & Yi Zhang & Huichao Ren & Rongrong Li & Jinhui Pang, 2017. "Measuring interdisciplinarity of a research system: detecting distinction between publication categories and citation categories," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(3), pages 2023-2039, June.
    8. Sondra N. Barringer & Erin Leahey & Karina Salazar, 2020. "What Catalyzes Research Universities to Commit to Interdisciplinary Research?," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 61(6), pages 679-705, September.
    9. Hoang-Son Pham & Bram Vancraeynest & Hanne Poelmans & Sadia Vancauwenbergh & Amr Ali-Eldin, 2023. "Identifying interdisciplinary research in research projects," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(10), pages 5521-5544, October.
    10. Koppman, Sharon & Leahey, Erin, 2019. "Who moves to the methodological edge? Factors that encourage scientists to use unconventional methods," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
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