Effect of Scientific Collaboration on Interdisciplinarity in Climate Change From a Scientometric Perspective

Abstract

This study focus on how scientific collaboration affects interdisciplinarity of cited references in the field of climate change. The combined methods (t test, Tukey’s post- hoc test, effect size, propensity score matching, and OLS regression analysis) were applied to reveal the effect of the levels and types of collaboration on interdisciplinarity. We found that research collaboration at the author and country/region levels significantly positive affected the disciplinary number of references and the integrated interdisciplinarity (named DIV), however, these effects were limited. Moreover, the more departments the coauthors came from, the more the interdisciplinarity was, but the less evenness the distribution of subject categories was. In addition, at author, institution and country/region levels, scientific collaboration has a negative effect on the balance of cited references. This study could provide valuable information to facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration in climate change.