Unpacking the connection between funding configurations and research teams’ interdisciplinary practices

Abstract Research funding programs often portray interdisciplinary research as crucial to stimulate scientific creativity, boost innovation, and tackle societal challenges. However, structural conditions in the organization and governance of science are not typically conducive to the performance of interdisciplinary research. Although funding programs encourage interdisciplinarity, there is no systematic evidence on the connection between research funding and interdisciplinary practices. In the present study, we investigate whether the receipt of financial support from diverse funding organizations is more likely to promote interdisciplinary research. We employ funding acknowledgment data to assess different funding configurations (i.e., diversity of funding sources) and use coauthorship networks to examine interdisciplinarity in teamwork dynamics. We focus on three European countries (Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands) and two research domains (Food Science and Renewable Energy) over the 11-year period 2009–2019. Panel data analysis reveals a positive association between a diverse funding configuration and interdisciplinary research at the research team level. This finding holds for different aspects of funding (e.g., funder origin, number of funders, funder type) and different measures of interdisciplinarity (e.g., variety, balance, disparity). We argue that research teams that respond to multiple funder priorities are more likely to engage in interdisciplinary research.