Identification of interdisciplinary research patterns based on the functional structures of IMRaD

Abstract

Interdisciplinary research has emerged as an important approach to tackling complex issues that cut across disciplines. Previous research assessed the interdisciplinarity of a paper without considering differences in functional structures. This study proposes a method to identify interdisciplinary research patterns by measuring the level of interdisciplinarity in research articles across four sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. With 19,712 articles in Bioinformatics, we revealed that interdisciplinarity typically arranges in the sequence of Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. We also identified six patterns, each featuring specific high-interdisciplinary sections, including All-round Integration, Multidisciplinary Application Exploration, Multidisciplinary Background Research, Multidisciplinary Approach, Interdisciplinary Analysis, and Non-Interdisciplinary Research. We further investigated the academic value of interdisciplinary research through citation impact and novel insights. Even with low citation counts, the number of high-level interdisciplinary research continues to grow. The topic analysis also demonstrated that different interdisciplinary research patterns prioritize certain aspects to solve the core problems of a research field. Moreover, the research focus of each pattern is consistent with the function of its highly interdisciplinary sections. For example, in protein structure research, the Multidisciplinary Approach pattern prioritizes accurate modelling and techniques, while the Multidisciplinary Application Exploration pattern emphasizes biological applications such as vaccine development. These findings provide management with guidance on how to encourage interdisciplinary research that genuinely contributes to innovation.