Dor several years, major research institutions have encouraged the development and promotion of multidisciplinary research projects. Many communication campaigns promote the benefits, touting a more global approach to training future elites, and richer and more innovative research environments.
Our work reveals, however, that multidisciplinary academics tend to be disadvantaged when evaluated by their colleagues (“A New Take on the Categorical Imperative: Gatekeeping, Boundary Maintenance, and Evaluation Penalties in Science”Riccardo Fini, Julien Jourdan, Markus Perkmann, Laura Toschi, Organization Science, July 2022). More surprising perhaps: the higher their performance, measured in terms of publications and citations, the more they are penalized!
This observation is particularly surprising in view of the literature. Previous studies on the subject suggest that multidisciplinary scientists are generally penalized by reviewers who struggle to classify their work, because a suspicion hangs over their competence and reliability. According to this reasoning, appraisers’ concerns should be dissipated when they have complete information about a colleague’s distinguished academic career. But what we observe is quite different.
Seemingly counter-intuitive results
Our study focuses on the national accreditation system set up in 2012 in Italy, whose role is to accredit candidates who can apply for a position of associate or full professor in an Italian public university. The analysis of all 55,497 applications submitted to 174 juries (specific to a scientific discipline) shows that the more efficient a multidisciplinary researcher is – in terms of publications and citations –, the less likely he is to be accredited by peers.
On average, the penalty applied to a high-performing multidisciplinary candidate is more than 50% higher than that applied to a low-performing alter ego! This phenomenon is particularly marked in “small” disciplines and in those that are very exclusive when it comes to scientific journals. Talented multidisciplinary candidates are also more severely evaluated by juries whose members have a profile typical of their discipline.
To understand these seemingly counterintuitive results, we need to take a closer look at how the world of research works. In the academic microcosm, a small number of talented and productive individuals exert a disproportionate influence on the future of each discipline. In particular, they can decide on the priority research areas and the orientation towards new approaches, theories or methods.
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