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A topic model approach to measuring interdisciplinarity at the National Science Foundation

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  • Leah G. Nichols

    (National Science Foundation)

Abstract

As the National Science Foundation (NSF) implements new cross-cutting initiatives and programs, interest in assessing the success of these experiments in fostering interdisciplinarity grows. A primary challenge in measuring interdisciplinarity is identifying and bounding the discrete disciplines that comprise interdisciplinary work. Using statistical text-mining techniques to extract topic bins, the NSF recently developed a topic map of all of their awards issued between 2000 and 2011. These new data provide a novel means for measuring interdisciplinarity by assessing the language or content of award proposals. Using the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences as a case study and drawing on the new topic model of the NSF’s awards, this paper explores new methods for quantifying interdisciplinarity in the NSF portfolio.

Suggested Citation

  • Leah G. Nichols, 2014. "A topic model approach to measuring interdisciplinarity at the National Science Foundation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 100(3), pages 741-754, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:100:y:2014:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-014-1319-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-014-1319-2
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    References listed on IDEAS

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