Interdisciplinary research is fundamental when it comes to tackling complex problems in our highly interlinked world, and is on the rise globally. Yet, it is unclear why--in an increasingly competitive academic environment--one should pursue an interdisciplinary career given its recent negative press. Several studies have indeed shown that interdisciplinary research often achieves lower impact compared to more specialized work, and is less likely to attract funding. We seek to reconcile such evidence by analyzing a dataset of 44,419 research grants awarded between 2006 and 2018 from the seven national research councils in the UK. We compared the research performance of researchers with an interdisciplinary funding track record with those who have a specialized profile. We found that the former dominates the network of academic collaborations, both in terms of centrality and knowledge brokerage; but such a competitive advantage does not immediately translate into impact. Indeed, by means of a matched pair experimental design, we found that researchers who transcend between disciplines on average achieve lower impacts in their publications than the subject specialists in the short run, but eventually outperform them in funding performance, both in terms of volume and value. Our results suggest that launching an interdisciplinary career may require more time and persistence to overcome extra challenges, but can pave the way for a more successful endeavour.

中文翻译：

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跨学科研究人员在资金筹措方面取得了更好的成绩

在解决高度互连的世界中的复杂问题时，跨学科研究至关重要，并且在全球范围内正在兴起。然而，目前还不清楚为什么在竞争日益激烈的学术环境中，鉴于最近的负面报道，人们应该追求跨学科的职业。确实有几项研究表明，与更专业的工作相比，跨学科研究的影响通常较小，并且吸引资金的可能性较小。我们试图通过分析英国七个国家研究委员会在2006年至2018年期间授予的44,419项研究资助的数据集来调和此类证据。我们将具有跨学科资金往绩记录的研究人员的研究表现与具有专业背景的研究人员进行了比较。我们发现前者在学术合作网络中占主导地位，在集中性和知识中介方面；但是这种竞争优势不会立即转化为影响。实际上，通过配对实验设计，我们发现，在短期内平均超越学科领域的研究人员在短期内所产生的影响要小于主题专家，但最终在资金数量和数量上都超过了他们。价值。我们的结果表明，开展跨学科的职业可能需要更多的时间和毅力来克服额外的挑战，但可以为更成功的事业铺平道路。我们发现，平均而言，跨学科交叉研究的研究人员在短期内所产生的影响要小于学科专家，但无论从数量还是价值上来说，最终在资金绩效方面都超过了他们。我们的结果表明，开展跨学科的职业可能需要更多的时间和毅力来克服额外的挑战，但可以为更成功的事业铺平道路。我们发现，平均而言，跨学科交叉研究的研究人员在短期内所产生的影响要小于学科专家，但无论从数量还是价值上来说，最终在资金绩效方面都超过了他们。我们的结果表明，开展跨学科的职业可能需要更多的时间和毅力来克服额外的挑战，但可以为更成功的事业铺平道路。