Rare gems: researchers from unconventional departments provide greater brokerage in interdisciplinary science

Abstract Interdisciplinary research institutes are widely implemented at research universities to support cross-disciplinary collaboration, but their impact on researchers’ collaboration networks may not be uniform. Variation in how academic departments are represented within an institute creates different opportunities for researchers to either broaden their networks or remain within their disciplinary boundaries. Using longitudinal publication data from 256 researchers over 17 years, we estimate whether researchers’ collaboration networks become more redundant (higher constraint) or more bridging (lower constraint) after joining one such institute. A significant moderation effect shows that, within our sample, departmental conventionality conditions the effect of membership: in less conventional departments, institute membership is associated with decreased network constraint, providing greater access to diverse and non-redundant co-authorship connections. These findings indicate that members joining the institute from less conventional departments experience a greater impact on research networks, suggesting the need for policies to support these researchers for their brokerage roles.