Interdisciplinary research and the production of local knowledge: evidence from a developing country

Diego Chavarro ¹, Puay Tang ², Ismael Rafols ³

¹  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research), University of Sussex - Falmer, Brighton - BN1 9SL - United Kingdom

² This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (Corresponding author), SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research), University of Sussex - Falmer, Brighton - BN1 9SL - United Kingdom

³ This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , Ingenio (CSIC-UPV), Universitat Politècnica de València & SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research), University of Sussex

Working Paper (locally hosted)

Arxiv link: http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.6742

Abstract

This paper examines the role of interdisciplinary research for the development of knowledge pertaining to local issues. Using Colombian publications from 1991 until 2011 in the Web of Science, we investigate the relationship between the degree of interdisciplinarity and the local focus of the articles. We find that a higher degree of interdisciplinarity in a publication is associated with a greater emphasis on local issues. In particular, our results support the view that research that combines cognitively disparate disciplines, what we refer to as Distal Interdisciplinarity, is associated with more local relevance of research. In contrast we find that research that involves a clear disciplinary focus with some, but limited engagement with neighbouring disciplines, generates less local knowledge. We conclude by arguing that public research initiatives that aim to appropriate the socio-economic benefits from publicly funded research should not focus exclusively on research excellence, which tends to be treated in disciplinary terms and citation counts as reflected in national research assessment exercises. Implications for policy are offered with attention to policies for capturing the societal benefits of publicly funded research, and implicitly, research assessment exercises.

 Keywords: local knowledge; interdisciplinary research; evaluation; S&T capabilities; social relevance

 Suplementary Materials

1. Raw data in Excel format - link

2. Script in R and raw data in csv format to compute diversity measures (for instructions read the file readme.txt) - link

3. Further details on the quantitative analysis, including descriptive statistics and test of the robustness of the regression - link

 Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Pablo d’Este, Alan Porter and Andy Stirling for fruitful discussions. We gratefully acknowledge support from the US National Science Foundation (Award #1064146 - “Revealing Innovation Pathways: Hybrid Science Maps for Technology Assessment and Foresight”). The findings and observations contained in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Big Pharma, Little Science? A bibliometric perspective on big pharma’s R&D decline

Technology Forecasting and Social Change (online)

Nominated to Best Paper Award in the 2012 DRUID Conference

Ismael Rafols, Michael M. Hopkins, Jarno Hoekman,Josh Siepel, Alice O'Hare, Antonio Perianes-Rodríguez and Paul Nightingale

There is a widespread perception that pharmaceutical R&D is facing a productivity crisis characterised by stagnation in the numbers of new drug approvals in the face of increasing R&D costs. This study explores pharmaceutical R&D dynamics by examining the publication activities of all R&D laboratories of the major European and US pharmaceutical firms during the period 1995-2009. The empirical findings present an industry in transformation. In the first place, we observe a decline of the total number of publications by large firms. Second, we show a relative increase of their external collaborations suggesting a tendency to outsource, and a diversification of the disciplinary base, in particular towards computation, health services and more clinical approaches. Also evident is a more pronounced decline in publications by both R&D laboratories located in Europe and by firms with European headquarters. Finally, while publications by big pharma in emerging economies sharply increase, they remain extremely low compared with those in developed countries. In summary, the trend in this transformation is one of a gradual decrease in internal research efforts and increasing reliance on external research. These empirical insights support the view that large pharmaceutical firms are increasingly becoming ‘networks integrators’ rather than the prime locus of drug discovery.

Complementary files

•  Complementary File 1: List of firm’s subsidiaries, acquisitions and mergers
•  Complementary File 2: Publication trends by firm
•  Complementary File 3: Web of Science Categories (WCs) of publication
•  Complementary File 4: Specialisation science maps: aggregate and by firm
•  Complementary File 5: Publication and collaboration trends by region and country