Interdisciplinary research requires a different review process
How should we assess the quality of interdisciplinary projects? In this blog, dr. Madelijn Strick, Associate Professor of Social, Health and Organizational Psychology, advocates that interdisciplinary research should be subjected to a different review process than monodisciplinary research.
“I have repeatedly submitted three manuscripts for publication in a scientific journal. These manuscripts, which describe interdisciplinary research, are rejected time and time again. I look back on these three projects with pride and joy, but the effort to publish them puts a damper on the festive spirit.
Research at the intersection of disciplines is often creative and can have major potential social impact
My academic discipline – social psychology – was introspective for a long time. We conducted research together with colleagues and published in our “own” psychology journals. In recent years, collaborations with other disciplines and external organisations have increased. I am in favour of this trend, as research at the intersection of disciplines is often creative and can have major potential social impact. However, my impression so far is that interdisciplinary research is hard to publish."
Review of interdisciplinary research
"Publishing monodisciplinary studies is hard enough already; it requires highly specialised knowledge on the disciplinary theories and methods. Interdisciplinary research often does not meet these strict criteria. The power of interdisciplinary studies lies in bringing together insights from various disciplines in an innovative way, sometimes combined with practical knowledge from societal organisations. This added value hardly seems to be considered when reviewing interdisciplinary projects.
When submitting an interdisciplinary study for publication, there are two options: the manuscript will be evaluated by a homogenous team of reviewers from the same discipline, or by a diverse team of reviewers from multiple disciplines. The first option is far from ideal, because the manuscript will be evaluated from a specialist’s perspective. But a diverse team is just as bad, as I understand from colleagues who have experience with this. They noticed that reviewers were more likely to ignore elements of the manuscripts from another discipline. Their assessment was therefore mainly focused on the aspects within their own expertise. They were just as critical on these topics as with monodisciplinary research.
The reviewing system will have to change if we want to properly assess the value of interdisciplinary research.
Interdisciplinary research should not be measured against monodisciplinary standards. One also should not slice the research into several monodisciplinary pieces and assess those separately. By doing this, you lose sight of the fact that the entirety is often more than the sum of its parts.
In the future, when setting up new interdisciplinary research, I will thoroughly consider how I can better position the project for scientific publication early in the process. But this may not just be my fault. The reviewing system will have to change if we want to properly assess the value of interdisciplinary research.”
Madelijn Strick, PhD. Member of the Utrecht Young Academy. Associate Professor of Social, Health and Organizational Psychology. Author of “Humor is een van de vier pijlers onder het universum (de andere drie ben ik vergeten)”.