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Scholars are being asked for their views on excellence in interdisciplinary research to help fuel the second edition of Times Higher Education’s Interdisciplinary Science Rankings.
The Interdisciplinary Science Research Survey targets experienced, published academics across the world and asks for their views about their own research and their institutions’ interdisciplinary research in science, or science and social science, subjects. It also asks them to name up to five institutions that they believe are the best in supporting interdisciplinary research between science, or science and social science, subjects.
The survey, which is available in 12 languages and typically takes up to five minutes to complete, has been sent to universities registered with THE. The institutions were encouraged to share the survey with research staff working in science disciplines (defined as physical sciences, life sciences, engineering and computer science) or those working on interdisciplinary research involving a science discipline and the social sciences, education, psychology, law, economics, or medical and health. It will close on 31 May.
The questionnaire can be forwarded to colleagues but each scholar can only complete it once. While the survey is about interdisciplinarity, it is not exclusively addressed to those engaged in interdisciplinary work and can therefore be circulated among staff doing monodisciplinary research. The aim of the survey is to understand how all research staff working in relevant disciplines feel about interdisciplinary research.
The results will inform the 2026 edition of THE’s Interdisciplinary Science Rankings – a project in partnership with Schmidt Science Fellows – which will be published in autumn 2025.
This year, in response to university engagement and feedback, the interdisciplinary scope has been broadened to cover any research project that comprises multiple scientific disciplines, or one or more scientific disciplines combined with one or more of the following non-STEM disciplines: social sciences, education, psychology, law, economics, or medical and health.
The ranking measures university performance in three areas: input (funding and recruitment); process (rewards, incentives, facilities and administrative support); and output (research quality).
Data from the survey will once again be used for the output pillar. The ranking will also draw on institutional data provided directly by universities, and bibliometric data.
Universities that would like to participate in the Interdisciplinary Science Rankings must submit data via the World University Rankings portal. Data collection closes on 30 March.
The inaugural Interdisciplinary Science Rankings, published in November 2024, was THE’s largest-ever debut ranking, with participation from 749 institutions in more than 90 countries or territories, and a further 274 reporter institutions.
The data showed that there is no silver bullet when it comes to producing world-changing interdisciplinary science.
Please check your inbox for details on the survey from interdisciplinary@timeshighereducation.com, interdisciplinary@timeshighereducationemail.com and interdisciplinary@timeshighereducationdata.com.
To ensure that all ranking and survey email communications are received, we highly recommend that institutions tell their IT departments to add the following email addresses and IPs to their ‘safe sender’ and/or ‘whitelists’:
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