Interdisciplinary dynamics of modern science: analysis of cross-disciplinary citation flows

Abstract

The references in research papers provide empirical data on knowledge flows within and between scientific disciplines. Many citations refer to papers that are published in scientific journals covering adjacent scientific disciplines. We have used this information source to explore — at the global level — the extent to which disciplines are interrelated through these cross-disciplinary citation links. In this paper we describe the main features of the bibliometric methodology. The first results of this study provide new macro-level data on the interdisciplinarity of modern science and identify a few disciplines, such as meteorology and atmospheric sciences, in which research has become noticeably more interdisciplinary.