Interdisciplinarity and expert rating: an analysis based on faculty opinions

The evaluation of interdisciplinary research is a crucial area of investigation in research evaluation. Many studies have examined the scientific impact of interdisciplinary research by assessing citation impact. However, there is a lack of research exploring the relationship between interdisciplinarity and peer review or expert opinions, particularly at the article level. This study aims to scrutinize the relationship between interdisciplinarity and both citation impact and Faculty Opinions recommendations (FORs) based on the dataset comprising 184,910 articles and 230,928 expert ratings from Faculty Opinions. The analysis yields two notable conclusions. Firstly, interdisciplinary research demonstrates a positive association with citations when considering composite interdisciplinarity indicators. Meanwhile, separate diversity measures reveal that variety and disparity positively impact citations, whereas balance exhibits a negative association with citations. Furthermore, a curvilinear relationship between interdisciplinarity and citations was identified, characterized by a U-shaped or J-shaped curve. Secondly, interdisciplinary research shows a negative association with FORs regarding composite interdisciplinarity indicators, indicating that experts are less likely to recommend interdisciplinary research. Analysis of separate diversity measures reveals that balance consistently exhibits a negative correlation with FORs, and disparity consistently displays a negative U-shaped association with FORs. In conclusion, although interdisciplinarity enhances citation impact, it appears to be underappreciated in Faculty Opinions.