How journal rankings can suppress interdisciplinary research. A comparison between Innovation Studies and Business & Management

This study provides quantitative evidence on how the use of journal rankings can disadvantage interdisciplinary research in research evaluations. Using publication and citation data, it compares the degree of interdisciplinarity and the research performance of a number of Innovation Studies units with that of leading Business & Management schools in the UK. On the basis of various mappings and metrics, this study shows that: (i) Innovation Studies units are consistently more interdisciplinary in their research than Business & Management schools; (ii) the top journals in the Association of Business Schools’ rankings span a less diverse set of disciplines than lower-ranked journals; (iii) this results in a more favourable assessment of the performance of Business & Management schools, which are more disciplinary-focused. This citation-based analysis challenges the journal ranking-based assessment. In short, the investigation illustrates how ostensibly ’excellence-based’ journal rankings exhibit a systematic bias in favour of mono-disciplinary research. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications of these phenomena, in particular how the bias is likely to affect negatively the evaluation and associated financial resourcing of interdisciplinary research organisations, and may result in researchers becoming more compliant with disciplinary authority over time.

💡 Research Summary

The paper provides a quantitative comparison between UK Innovation Studies (IS) units and leading Business & Management Schools (BMS) to demonstrate how journal ranking systems can systematically disadvantage interdisciplinary research (IDR). Using publication and citation data from 2000‑2010, the authors assess interdisciplinarity through multiple bibliometric measures, including Rao‑Stirling diversity, cross‑disciplinary citation networks, and the proportion of interdisciplinary references. Research performance is evaluated along two axes: (1) the British Association of Business Schools (ABS) journal ranking scores (A*, A, B, etc.) and (2) citation‑based impact normalized by a “citing‑side” method that accounts for field‑specific citation practices.

The results show that IS units are consistently more interdisciplinary than BMS, as evidenced by higher diversity scores and broader citation linkages across economics, sociology, technology studies, and policy fields. In contrast, the top‑ranked ABS journals are concentrated in a narrow set of disciplines—primarily business, management, economics, and finance—resulting in a limited disciplinary spread. Consequently, performance metrics that rely on ABS rankings favor BMS, whereas citation‑based indicators either show no significant difference or even a modest advantage for IS. This divergence indicates that ABS rankings embed a bias toward mono‑disciplinary research and fail to capture the true impact of interdisciplinary work.

The authors argue that such bias has concrete policy implications: because the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) heavily weights journal rankings—directly or indirectly—IS units risk receiving lower funding and reputational scores, potentially steering researchers toward more disciplinary‑aligned outputs. They recommend adopting multi‑dimensional evaluation frameworks that incorporate field‑normalized citation metrics, developing dedicated support mechanisms for IDR, and revising journal ranking schemes to reflect disciplinary diversity. In sum, the study provides robust empirical evidence that “excellence‑based” journal rankings can suppress interdisciplinary research, with long‑term consequences for the diversity and innovative capacity of the research ecosystem.