From What Types of Universities do New Scientific and Scholarly Disciplines Emerge?

Advances in science are often associated with pre-eminent research universities. Policy makers and those who collaborate with university researchers may assume that this advantage generalizes to all types of research. This analysis explores whether this generalization applies to research in emerging disciplines. We do so by examining the production of research/scholarship doctorates (primarily PhDs) in new disciplines compared to more traditional disciplines, as determined by inclusion in the US National Center for Education Statistics (ED) Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) taxonomy and the US-based Carnegie Classifications to distinguish among types of institutions. Results suggest that the more traditional research-intensive institutions dominate production in more traditional disciplines, but other types of institutions play a larger role in producing emerging discipline scholars.