Problem-solving often requires crossing boundaries, such as those between disciplines. In collaborations with third parties, however, “interdisciplinarity” is not necessarily an objective in itself, but can be a means for creating “synergy.” When policy-makers call for interdisciplinarity,” they often mean “synergy.” However, the measurement of “synergy” requires a methodology very different from the measurement of “interdisciplinarity.” Synergy is generated when the whole offers more possibilities than the sum of its parts. We discuss recent advances in the operationalization and measurement of “interdisciplinarity” and propose a methodology for measuring “synergy.” An increase in the number of options above the sum of the options in subsets can be measured as redundancy; that is, the number of not-yet-realized options. Increasing redundancy reduces the relative uncertainty; for example, in niches. The operationalization of the two concepts — “interdisciplinarity” and “synergy”— as different outcome indicators enables us to distinguish between the effects and the effectiveness of interventions in research priorities.

中文翻译：

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科学和超科学合作中“跨学科性”和“协同性”的衡量

解决问题通常需要跨越界限，例如学科之间的界限。然而，在与第三方的合作中，“跨学科”本身并不一定是一个目标，而是一种创造“协同效应”的手段。当政策制定者呼吁跨学科时，他们通常指的是“协同作用”。然而，衡量“协同效应”需要一种与衡量“跨学科性”截然不同的方法论。当整体提供的可能性多于部分之和时，就会产生协同作用。我们讨论了“跨学科”的操作和衡量的最新进展，并提出了一种衡量“协同效应”的方法。选项数量的增加超过子集中选项的总和可以被衡量为冗余；也就是说，尚未实现的选项的数量。增加冗余减少了相对的不确定性；例如，在壁龛中。将“跨学科”和“协同”这两个概念作为不同的结果指标进行操作，使我们能够区分研究重点中干预措施的效果和有效性。