Glass Boundaries: Differences in Interdisciplinarity Between Men and Women 22st International Conference on Science and Technology Indicators, STI2017. Paris, France, 6-8 September 2017

Miao, Lili, Murray, Dakota, Chinchilla-Rodríguez, Zaida, Larivière, Vincent and Sugimoto, Cassidy Rose. ‘Glass Boundaries: Differences in Interdisciplinarity Between Men and Women’. 22st International Conference on Science and Technology Indicators, STI2017. Paris, France, 6-8 September 2017.
Federal funding agencies have invested resources into promoting interdisciplinary research as well as diversity, hoping to see returns in innovation. But most past research tends to explore only one of these topic, and tends to focus on their benefits to scientific impact, rather than the individual decisions of researchers. This study provides a preliminary analysis of gender differences in interdisciplinary research. Using the Academic Analytics dataset, we calculated the percentage of interdisciplinary researchers in each discipline, and explore the composition of disciplines with which these researchers are affiliated. We find that while female and male researchers are equally likely to engage in interdisciplinary research, there are statistically significant differences in the composition of disciplines to which men and women affiliate. These results offer initial insight into how men and women navigate disciplinary boundaries in their research, and paves the way for more thorough investigation.