Publication network visualization as an approach for interdisciplinary innovation management

Interdisciplinary research is currently the central scientific approach, assumed to be the answer to large-scale research problems (e.g., health and aging, economics and production in high-wage countries). Although it is quite popular, there is still a lack of knowledge about how to measure, steer, support, and manage interdisciplinary success. This paper presents an approach to analyze, steer, and manage the structure and success of interdisciplinary cooperation by implementing a publication network visualization tool into an interdisciplinary research cluster. The presented study is an exploratory interview study addressing the significance of mixed node publication visualization usage within interdisciplinary teams. Members of a sample research group (N = 5) were asked to evaluate the publication visualization approach in order to find out more about the usefulness of such a tool for the interdisciplinary workflow. First results show that benefits of such a tool are seen in the ease of finding potential partners for cooperation. Barriers were seen, on the one hand, in the limitation of parameters that can be visualized, and on the other hand, in effects that could follow an implementation (e.g., pressure to publish, competition among team members, etc.).