Mapping interdisciplinary fields: Efficiencies, gaps and redundancies in HIV/AIDS research

Abstract

While interdisciplinarity continues to increase in popularity among funders and other scientific organizations, its potential to promote scientific advances remains under-examined. For HIV/AIDS research, we examine the dynamics of disciplinary integration (or lack thereof) providing insight into a field's knowledge base and those questions that remain unresolved. Drawing on the complete histories of two interdisciplinary journals, we construct bibliographic coupling networks based on overlapping citations to identify segregation into research clusters and estimate topic models of research content. We then compare how readily those bibliographic coupling clusters account for the structuring of topics covered within the field as it evolves over two decades. These comparisons challenge one-dimensional and/or cross-sectional approaches to interdisciplinarity. Some topics are increasingly coordinated across disciplinary boundaries (e.g., vaccine development); others remain relatively segmented into disconnected disciplinary domains for the full period (e.g., drug resistance). This divergence indicates heterogeneity in interdisciplinarity and emphasizes the need for critical approaches to studying the organization of science.