On the relationship between interdisciplinarity and impact: different modalities of interdisciplinarity lead to different types of impact

There is increasing interest among funding agencies to understand how they can best contribute to enhancing the socio-economic impact of research. Interdisciplinarity is often presented as a research mode that can facilitate impact but there exist a limited number of analytical studies that have attempted to examine whether or how interdisciplinarity can affect the societal relevance of research. We investigate fifteen Social Sciences research investments in the UK to examine how they have achieved impact. We analyse research drivers, cognitive distances, degree of integration, collaborative practices, stakeholder engagement and the type of impact generated. The analysis suggests that interdisciplinarity cannot be associated with a single type of impact mechanism. Also, interdisciplinarity is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for achieving societal relevance and impact. However, we identify a specific modality – “long-range” interdisciplinarity, which appears more likely to be associated with societal impact because of its focused problem-orientation and its strong interaction with stakeholders.

💡 Research Summary

This paper investigates how interdisciplinary research (IDR) relates to socio‑economic impact, focusing on fifteen UK‑funded social‑science projects. The authors begin by noting that funding agencies increasingly demand demonstrable impact, and interdisciplinary approaches are often touted as a catalyst, yet empirical evidence linking specific forms of IDR to impact mechanisms remains scarce. To fill this gap, the study adopts a mixed‑methods case‑study design, coding each project for (1) research drivers, (2) cognitive distance between the disciplines involved, (3) degree of integration, (4) collaborative practices, (5) stakeholder engagement, and (6) the type of impact generated.

Cognitive distance is measured by the epistemic and methodological gap between participating fields; a large distance indicates, for example, a partnership between economics and molecular biology, while a small distance might involve economics and sociology. Degree of integration captures how deeply the disciplines are fused in research design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Plotting projects on these two axes yields two distinct modalities: “long‑range” interdisciplinarity (high cognitive distance + high integration) and “short‑range” interdisciplinarity (low distance + lower integration).

Collaborative practices are coded for joint team formation, co‑design of studies, shared data work, and co‑authorship. Stakeholder engagement is assessed through the frequency and depth of interaction with policy makers, industry partners, NGOs, and community groups, including joint problem definition, iterative feedback loops, and co‑implementation of findings.

The analysis reveals several key patterns. First, long‑range projects are typically problem‑oriented, tackling complex societal challenges such as regional regeneration, health inequality, or climate‑resilient agriculture. They engage stakeholders from the outset, co‑defining research questions, co‑collecting data, and co‑producing policy recommendations or prototypes. As a result, these projects generate concrete impacts: policy reforms, technology transfer, changes in public service delivery, and measurable shifts in community behaviour.

Second, short‑range projects, while often producing high‑impact academic outputs (publications, citations), show limited direct societal influence. Their collaborations tend to stay within adjacent disciplines, and stakeholder interaction is sporadic or confined to dissemination rather than co‑creation. Consequently, impact is indirect, emerging only after a secondary translation phase that is not captured within the project’s timeframe.

Third, the authors emphasize that interdisciplinarity is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for impact. Some mono‑disciplinary studies with strong stakeholder partnerships achieve significant societal change, whereas interdisciplinary projects lacking stakeholder integration produce modest or no observable impact. Thus, the presence of interdisciplinary methods alone does not guarantee relevance; the mode of integration and the quality of stakeholder interaction are decisive.

Policy implications are drawn from these findings. Funding bodies should move beyond blanket calls for “interdisciplinary research” and instead tailor calls to the nature of the societal problem. For complex, wicked problems, long‑range interdisciplinarity coupled with structured stakeholder co‑design should be incentivized. Evaluation frameworks need to incorporate metrics of stakeholder engagement and integration depth, not merely disciplinary breadth or bibliometric performance. By aligning funding criteria with the identified impact pathways, agencies can more effectively channel resources toward research that translates into tangible societal benefits.

In sum, the paper contributes a nuanced typology of interdisciplinarity, demonstrates empirically that “long‑range” interdisciplinary collaborations are more likely to produce direct societal impact, and offers actionable guidance for researchers, funders, and policymakers seeking to harness interdisciplinary science for real‑world change.