Importance of interdisciplinary research for knowledge exchange in universities: An organizational perspective (CIMR debates in Public Policy)
When:
—
Venue:
Online
Join the Centre for Innovation Management Research on Wednesday 12 June 2024, 1.00-2.00PM for an online lunchtime workshop on the importance of interdisciplinary research.
The online debate is part of the CIMR Debates and Workshops in Public Policy series.
Presenters: Marianna Marra and Abhijit Sengupta
Discussant: Daniele Rotolo (University of Sussex)
Chair: Federica Rossi
Abstract
This paper explores the organization level relationship between multiple dimensions of interdisciplinary research (IDR) and multiple knowledge exchange outcomes (KE) in universities, with emphasis on the university’s internal and external research impact environments as the boundary conditions on the relationships. While existing research suggests that, despite the high risks of failure, IDR leads to better KE outcomes in individual researchers, we find this relationship for universities as a whole, to be far more complex, multifaceted, and contextualized on the research environment. Our findings are based on a large sample of research active UK universities over 14-year period (2008-2022), with research outputs in 12 major science and social science disciplines, and measures IDR across multiple dimensions of variety, balance and disparity. We find that for KE as a whole, the balance and disparity related characteristics of IDR have greater impact than the overall variety. Academic engagement channels of knowledge exchange are more reactive to IDR, whereas the commercialization channel less so.
Within academic engagement, collaborative research shows a positive relationship with the variety dimension, whereas the impact on contract research can be positive or negative depending on the dimension of IDR being considered. These relationships are conditioned on the “impact focus” internally within the university, as well as in the overall external environment. Interestingly, when the university’s internal and external research environments are more aligned towards research impact, IDR shows an unambiguous positive relationship with both contractual and commercialization channels, specifically when the disparity among disciplines being combined is high.
PANEL
Chair: Federica Rossi
Dr Federica Rossi is Associate Professor in Economic Policy at Universita’ di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy, and Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck Business School, University of London. Her current research interests comprise: knowledge exchange between research and industry, including with the arts and cultural sector; digital technologies and innovation; policy evaluation particularly in relation to innovation, science and technology policy. She has authored numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and books.
Daniele Rotolo
Dr. Daniele Rotolo is a Professor in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy at SPRU (Science Policy Research Unit), University of Sussex Business School and Associate Professor at Department of Mechanics, Mathematics and Management, Polytechnic University of Bari.
From 2014 to 2016, Daniele was an EU Marie Curie Researcher at SPRU and the School of Public Policy of Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, US). He holds a PhD (European Doctorate) in Innovation Management from Scuola Interpolitecnica (Italy), a joint PhD program among the Polytechnic University of Bari, Polytechnic University of Milan, and Polytechnic University of Turin. During his PhD, Daniele was also a visiting researcher at University College London (London, UK) and Stern Business School at New York University (New York, US).
Daniele has received research funding from the European Commission, Cancer Research UK, and Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). His most recent work has focussed on the conceptualisation and operationalisation of emerging technologies, inter-organisational network dynamics featuring technological change, scientometric mapping techniques, the role of networks in knowledge creation, barriers to interdisciplinary research, and the determinants of academic productivity. This work has been published in top-tier journals in the field of science policy and innovation studies such as Research Policy, Journal of Organizational Behaviour, and Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST). Daniele is also Associate Editor of Research Policy and ad hoc reviewer for a number of leading journals.
Personal website: www.danielerotolo.com
Abhijit Sengupta
Dr Abhijit Sengupta is the Head of Department of Department of Business Analytics and Operations at Surrey Business School, and an Associate Professor (Reader) in Business Analytics. He holds a PhD in Economics from Stony Brook University in New York, an MA in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India and a BSc in Economics from University of Calcutta, India. He specializes in the use of advanced quantitative methods, including econometrics, machine learning and agent based simulations, and has experience of research in both academic and industrial settings.
Abhijit's research interests are in the areas of innovation and technology management, global strategy, and behaviour within complex systems. He has published in leading journals such as Research Policy, British Journal of Management, Journal of World Business, Journal of Business Research, Technovation, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, among others. He holds a Visiting position at the InnoLab in University of Vaasa (Finland).
He is an Editorial Board Member for the British Journal of Management, and has previously acted as Special Issue Associate Editor for the same. He has also been nominated as a Member of the Peer Review College, British Academy of Management and as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Previous academic experience includes University of Kent (Senior Lecturer) and University of Essex (Lecturer and Senior Lecturer). Prior to joining academia, he worked in Unilever Research & Development as a Research Scientist and subsequently, Senior Scientist, lead multiple research projects on price optimization, consumer behaviour analytics, brand competition strategy among others.
Marianna Marra
Marianna Marra joined the University of Sussex in January 2020. She is a Reader (Associate Professor) in International Business and Innovation, and a member of the International Business and Development Hub and of the Business Finance Research Group. She is also the Director of Doctoral Studies at the University of Sussex Business School.
She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK (Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce).
She holds a Ph.D. from Aston Business School (Birmingham, UK). She was visiting at Rutgers University (Newark, US).
Marianna is active in the research fields of international business, technology innovation management, and social network analysis. Her current research mainly relates to multinational knowledge networks and innovation. She studies this, through the lens of IB studies and by using patent data and firm-level microdata. Marianna also researches comparative institutional analysis and studies how different forms of capitalism affect multinational corporations operating in different institutional contexts. Her work has been presented at international conferences such as the Academy of Management, Strategic Management Society, Academy of International Business, and Druid Conference. Part of her work has been published in leading journals such as the Journal of Corporate Finance, Work Employment, and Society, International Business Review, International Journal of Production Economics, Annals of Operations Research, and International Journal of Production Research.
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