Abstract
Sustainability research is expected to incorporate concepts, methods, and data from a diverse array of academic disciplines. We investigate the extent to which sustainability research lives up to this ideal of an interdisciplinary field. Using bibliometric data, we orient our study around the "tripartite model" of sustainability, which suggests that sustainability research should draw from the three "pillars" of the environmental, economic, and social sciences. We ask three questions: (i) is sustainability research truly more interdisciplinary than research generally, (ii) to what extent does research grounded in one pillar draw on research from the other two, and (iii) if certain disciplines or pillars are more interdisciplinary than others, then what explains this variation? Our results indicate that sustainability science, while more interdisciplinary than other scientific fields, falls short of the expectations inherent in the tripartite model. The pillar with the fewest articles published on sustainability-economics-is also the most integrative, while the pillar with the most articles-environmental sciences-draws the least from outside disciplines. But interdisciplinarity comes at a cost: sustainability research in economics and the social sciences is centered around a relatively small number of interdisciplinary journals, which may be becoming less valued over time. These findings suggest that, if sustainability research is to live up to its interdisciplinary ideals, researchers must be provided with greater incentives to draw from fields other than their own.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 67-80 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Sustainability Science |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 2012 |
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Keywords
- Academia
- Bibliometric
- Citation analysis
- Interdisciplinarity
- Sustainability science
- Sustainable
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Sociology and Political Science
- Health(social science)
- Geography, Planning and Development
- Ecology
- Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
- Nature and Landscape Conservation
- Global and Planetary Change
Cite this
How interdisciplinary is sustainability research? Analyzing the structure of an emerging scientific field. / Schoolman, Ethan D.; Guest, Jeremy S.; Bush, Kathleen F.; Bell, Andrew.
In: Sustainability Science, Vol. 7, No. 1, 01.2012, p. 67-80.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - How interdisciplinary is sustainability research? Analyzing the structure of an emerging scientific field
AU - Schoolman, Ethan D.
AU - Guest, Jeremy S.
AU - Bush, Kathleen F.
AU - Bell, Andrew
PY - 2012/1
Y1 - 2012/1
N2 - Sustainability research is expected to incorporate concepts, methods, and data from a diverse array of academic disciplines. We investigate the extent to which sustainability research lives up to this ideal of an interdisciplinary field. Using bibliometric data, we orient our study around the "tripartite model" of sustainability, which suggests that sustainability research should draw from the three "pillars" of the environmental, economic, and social sciences. We ask three questions: (i) is sustainability research truly more interdisciplinary than research generally, (ii) to what extent does research grounded in one pillar draw on research from the other two, and (iii) if certain disciplines or pillars are more interdisciplinary than others, then what explains this variation? Our results indicate that sustainability science, while more interdisciplinary than other scientific fields, falls short of the expectations inherent in the tripartite model. The pillar with the fewest articles published on sustainability-economics-is also the most integrative, while the pillar with the most articles-environmental sciences-draws the least from outside disciplines. But interdisciplinarity comes at a cost: sustainability research in economics and the social sciences is centered around a relatively small number of interdisciplinary journals, which may be becoming less valued over time. These findings suggest that, if sustainability research is to live up to its interdisciplinary ideals, researchers must be provided with greater incentives to draw from fields other than their own.
AB - Sustainability research is expected to incorporate concepts, methods, and data from a diverse array of academic disciplines. We investigate the extent to which sustainability research lives up to this ideal of an interdisciplinary field. Using bibliometric data, we orient our study around the "tripartite model" of sustainability, which suggests that sustainability research should draw from the three "pillars" of the environmental, economic, and social sciences. We ask three questions: (i) is sustainability research truly more interdisciplinary than research generally, (ii) to what extent does research grounded in one pillar draw on research from the other two, and (iii) if certain disciplines or pillars are more interdisciplinary than others, then what explains this variation? Our results indicate that sustainability science, while more interdisciplinary than other scientific fields, falls short of the expectations inherent in the tripartite model. The pillar with the fewest articles published on sustainability-economics-is also the most integrative, while the pillar with the most articles-environmental sciences-draws the least from outside disciplines. But interdisciplinarity comes at a cost: sustainability research in economics and the social sciences is centered around a relatively small number of interdisciplinary journals, which may be becoming less valued over time. These findings suggest that, if sustainability research is to live up to its interdisciplinary ideals, researchers must be provided with greater incentives to draw from fields other than their own.
KW - Academia
KW - Bibliometric
KW - Citation analysis
KW - Interdisciplinarity
KW - Sustainability science
KW - Sustainable
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=83055187988&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=83055187988&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11625-011-0139-z
DO - 10.1007/s11625-011-0139-z
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:83055187988
VL - 7
SP - 67
EP - 80
JO - Sustainability Science
JF - Sustainability Science
SN - 1862-4065
IS - 1
ER -