Interdisciplinary PhDs face barriers to top university placement within their disciplines
Fuente:
arXiv
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| Autori principali: | , , , , |
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| Natura: | Preprint |
| Pubblicazione: |
2025
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| Soggetti: | |
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| _version_ | 1866908628718452736 |
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| author | Zheng, Xiang Peng, Anli Hong, Xi Sugimoto, Cassidy R. Ni, Chaoqun |
| author_facet | Zheng, Xiang Peng, Anli Hong, Xi Sugimoto, Cassidy R. Ni, Chaoqun |
| contents | Interdisciplinary research has gained prominence as a necessity for addressing complex challenges, yet its impact on early academic careers remains unclear. This study examines how interdisciplinarity during doctoral training influences faculty placement at top universities across diverse fields. Analyzing the career trajectories of over 30,000 tenure-track faculty members who earned their Ph.D. degrees after 2005 and their initial faculty placement at 355 U.S. universities, we find that faculty newly hired by top-ranked universities tend to be less interdisciplinary in their Ph.D. research, particularly when they obtained Ph.D. from top universities and remain in their Ph.D. research field. This may reflect community trends towards homogeneity: at top universities, the existing faculty research is less interdisciplinary and more aligned with the candidates that they hire (who also exhibit lower interdisciplinarity). This preference disadvantages the placement of women graduates, who exhibit higher interdisciplinarity on average. Furthermore, we show that newly hired faculty with greater interdisciplinarity, when placed at top universities, tend to achieve higher long-term research productivity. This suggests a potential loss in knowledge production if top universities continue to undervalue interdisciplinary candidates. These findings highlight structural barriers in faculty hiring and raise concerns about the long-term consequences of prioritizing disciplinary specialization over interdisciplinary expertise. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_21912 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Interdisciplinary PhDs face barriers to top university placement within their disciplines Zheng, Xiang Peng, Anli Hong, Xi Sugimoto, Cassidy R. Ni, Chaoqun Computers and Society Digital Libraries Interdisciplinary research has gained prominence as a necessity for addressing complex challenges, yet its impact on early academic careers remains unclear. This study examines how interdisciplinarity during doctoral training influences faculty placement at top universities across diverse fields. Analyzing the career trajectories of over 30,000 tenure-track faculty members who earned their Ph.D. degrees after 2005 and their initial faculty placement at 355 U.S. universities, we find that faculty newly hired by top-ranked universities tend to be less interdisciplinary in their Ph.D. research, particularly when they obtained Ph.D. from top universities and remain in their Ph.D. research field. This may reflect community trends towards homogeneity: at top universities, the existing faculty research is less interdisciplinary and more aligned with the candidates that they hire (who also exhibit lower interdisciplinarity). This preference disadvantages the placement of women graduates, who exhibit higher interdisciplinarity on average. Furthermore, we show that newly hired faculty with greater interdisciplinarity, when placed at top universities, tend to achieve higher long-term research productivity. This suggests a potential loss in knowledge production if top universities continue to undervalue interdisciplinary candidates. These findings highlight structural barriers in faculty hiring and raise concerns about the long-term consequences of prioritizing disciplinary specialization over interdisciplinary expertise. |
| title | Interdisciplinary PhDs face barriers to top university placement within their disciplines |
| topic | Computers and Society Digital Libraries |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.21912 |