Interdisciplinary research risks being underfunded unless appropriate evaluation practices are developed, experts have warned, after a Spanish report?described continued ¡°methodological challenges¡± in evaluating such science.

More than 60 Spanish institutions by the country¡¯s branch of the Coalition to Advance Research Assessment (CoARA), titled Mapping Institutional Approaches to Research Assessment Reform. It?details ¡°emerging institutional practices in Spain that are moving toward more qualitative, accountable, and inclusive research assessment models¡±.

While the report¡¯s authors observed ¡°the promotion of practices that recognise interdisciplinarity¡±, they also identified ¡°relevant methodological challenges¡± to effective evaluation.

The most common approach to the evaluation of interdisciplinary research, the authors found, involved interdisciplinary committees or panels, comprising specialists from multiple fields.

̽»¨ÊÓƵ

Josefin Wangel, co-chair of the CoARA working group on assessing transdisciplinary research, told ̽»¨ÊÓƵ that such committees must also involve reviewers with experience of interdisciplinary research themselves. Without them, she said, ¡°it is near impossible to understand both the challenges and potentials involved¡±.

Without fair evaluation, Wangel said, interdisciplinary research and researchers competing with those working in a single discipline can become underfunded, ¡°not because of a lack of quality or excellence, but because the evaluation system is unconsciously biased towards monodisciplinary research¡±.

̽»¨ÊÓƵ

¡°Monodisciplinary researchers that review interdisciplinary research and researchers tend to get stuck in detail that relate to their own field of expertise, rather than taking a comprehensive view,¡± she said. ¡°[They can] also miss some of the more daunting aspects of doing interdisciplinary research, such as navigating epistemological plurality in a constructive way.¡±

The Spanish chapter of CoARA addressed this concern while setting out a series of recommendations for institutions, advising that committees should receive specific training on interdisciplinary assessment, while evaluation structures ¡°specifically dedicated to the assessment of interdisciplinary research¡± should be established.

Evaluation procedures and instruments should undergo ¡°periodic review¡±, the group recommended, ¡°to ensure that their application is consistent with their objective¡±.

The report also advised ¡°the use of techniques that facilitate consensus among peers from disciplines with different methods, standards and procedures¡±, although Wangel noted that the pursuit of consensus could be problematic. ¡°For monodisciplinary research and researchers this might work well, but since consensus tends to reinforce scientific conservatism, it is a less useful practice when it comes to interdisciplinary research and researchers,¡± she said.

̽»¨ÊÓƵ

¡°Monodisciplinary research has been the norm for a long time, and thus has also shaped the norms for research evaluation,¡± Wangel noted.

¡°Unless we develop articulate practices for evaluating interdisciplinary research and researchers, the risk is high that they will be evaluated using monodisciplinary standards. And since interdisciplinary research by definition transgresses the confines of disciplines, such an evaluation is rarely to their advantage.¡±

?emily.dixon@timeshighereducation.com