New study finds career barriers for young scientists embracing interdisciplinary research

New Delhi: Young scientists, who engage in interdisciplinary research in biomedicine, face significant career impediments compared to their peers who focus solely on their discipline.

A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that the research, led by Professor Bruce Weinberg from The Ohio State University, analysed data on 154,021 biomedical PhD graduates and over 2.6 million research papers.

The study found that young interdisciplinary researchers tend to stop publishing earlier in their careers, with half of the most interdisciplinary (top 1 per cent) ceasing publication by the eighth year, compared to over 20 years for moderately interdisciplinary researchers (10-75 per cent range).

"As an economist, you would think that the most interdisciplinary young researchers would get the most rewards because that is the type of research that is seen as most valuable. But that doesn't appear to be the case," said Weinberg.

The study highlighted the importance of integrating knowledge across various disciplines, including biology, physics, chemistry, computer science, engineering, and social science, to address complex biomedical challenges such as food sustainability, ageing, and disease treatment.

However, despite universities encouraging interdisciplinarity, long-standing academic structures focused on individual disciplines may hinder early-career researchers with broad interests.

Interestingly, the study noted that while young researchers initially decrease their interdisciplinary work over time, interdisciplinarity increases as researchers' careers progress. This suggests that established scientists may have more freedom to explore diverse fields.

"We are missing an opportunity by not encouraging the bright young minds who are already interested in working with scientists in other fields to solve society's most difficult problems," Weinberg emphasised.

The study calls for academic institutions to reconsider how they support interdisciplinary research, particularly for emerging scientists.