Interdisciplinary research and the future of research assessment

How should the UK’s research system recognise and foster interdisciplinary research?

From the immediate crisis of COVID-19 to long term challenges such as our ageing society and climate change, the major issues facing the world require an interdisciplinary approach to solve. This report for The Physiological Society makes recommendations on how we can increase the quantity of interdisciplinary research and address current barriers within the research ecosystem. It looks at the future of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) as well as related factors such as the publishing landscape.

Research Consulting to sector. The project has brought together a Steering Group comprised of representatives from across the research landscape, including The Royal Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, Institute of Physics, CaSE, Royal Society of Biology, Russell Group and GuildHE.

In delivering this work we carried out 1-1 interviews and focus groups with a range of experts across the sector. This included university research leaders, researchers at different career stages and from a range of disciplines. Relevant perspectives from stakeholders in industry and in publishing were also considered. In total, nearly 50 people contributed to this report, through the Steering Group, interviews or focus groups.

The report identifies 10 recommendations, the first four are focused the future of research assessment, where we recommend that a future exercise adopts a structure that explicitly identifies and rewards research founded on interdisciplinary approaches. The remainder consider wider recommendations for interdisciplinary research, addressing a number of gaps, underpinning issues and opportunities that emerged through the course of this study.