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Exploring the antecedents of interdisciplinarity at the European Research Council: a topic modeling approach

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Abstract

The paper applies topic modeling to the collection of ERC-funded proposals, interim reports and related publications, with the aim of measuring in a novel way the degree of interdisciplinarity. This approach helps to address several open research questions about the epistemic, institutional and individual conditions that may favour the blossoming of interdisciplinarity. We present several interesting descriptive data and suggest possible lines of investigation about the antecedents of interdisciplinarity.

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Notes

  1. https://www.scienceeurope.org/what-s-going-on/?types=mediaCoverage.

  2. http://erc.europa.eu/funding-and-grants/funding-schemes/starting-grants.

  3. https://erc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/document/file/ERC_Panel_structure_2019.pdf.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is a substantially extended version of the publication presented at the 18th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI2021) (Bonaccorsi et al., 2021). We thank Ronald Rousseau, Wolfgang Glänzel, and Cassidy R. Sugimoto for this dedicated issue of Scientometrics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Energy, Process and System Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Andrea Bonaccorsi & Nicola Melluso

  2. SIRIS Lab, Research Division of SIRIS Academic, 08003, Barcelona, Spain

    Francesco Alessandro Massucci

Authors
  1. Andrea Bonaccorsi
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  2. Nicola Melluso
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  3. Francesco Alessandro Massucci
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nicola Melluso.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 2 and 3.

Table 2 ERC Panel List
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Table 3 Analysis of IDR value on panels
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Bonaccorsi, A., Melluso, N. & Massucci, F.A. Exploring the antecedents of interdisciplinarity at the European Research Council: a topic modeling approach. Scientometrics 127, 6961–6991 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-022-04368-9

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