Structural Conditions for Interdisciplinarity

Analysing structural conditions for interdisciplinarity, this paper focuses on the characteristics of four factors in the organization of the sciences: disciplines, institutions, rewards and funding. It is argued that interdisciplinarity is less likely to involve disciplines that are strongly integrated, i.e. where task uncertainty is low and the dependence among researchers is high. Likewise, it is claimed that interdisciplinarity is likely to be hampered by strong departmental organization structures. Interdisciplinarity is also considered to become less likely as quality control is specifically discipline oriented and also when funding is concentrated and in the hands of scientific elites. In contrast, interdisciplinary research may be found in research environments with weakly integrated disciplines in institutions with weak or no departmental structures, and where disciplinary reward systems are weak in systems with a variety of funding.