Abstract
Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) increasingly absorb knowledge from Hard Sciences, i.e., Science, Technology, Agriculture and Medicine (STAM), as testified by a growing number of citations. However, whether citing more Hard Sciences brings more citations to HSS remains to be investigated. Based on China’s HSS articles indexed by the Web of Science during 1998–2014, this paper estimated two-way fixed effects negative binomial models, with journal effects and year effects. Findings include: (1) An inverse U-shaped curve was observed between the percentage of STAM references to the HSS articles and the number of citations they received; (2) STAM contributed increasing knowledge to China’s HSS, while Science and Technology knowledge contributed more citations to HSS articles. It is recommended that research policy should be adjusted to encourage HSS researchers to adequately integrate STAM knowledge when conducting interdisciplinary research, as over-cited STAM knowledge may jeopardize the readability of HSS articles.
Highlights
Interdisciplinary research has been long regarded as a catalyst for breakthroughs and innovations, as well as an effective tool to address increasingly complex socio/economic problems and foster competitiveness [1]
Note that the numbers of STAM references would be significantly higher, if we counted in the STAM references which are not indexed by the Web of Science
An inverted U-shaped relationship was observed between the ratio of Hard Sciences (HS) knowledge cited and the number of citations Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) articles received
Summary
Since the mid-1980s, research papers have increasingly cited work outside their own disciplines [4]. Interdisciplinary knowledge flow from HS to HSS influences science policy towards research funding. Preferential science policies encouraged interdisciplinary research which integrated knowledge from both HSS and HS. In order to address this research question, we explore the relationship between the ratio of HS references in HSS articles and the number of citations they received, by examining China’s HSS articles indexed by the Web of Science during 1998–2014 and using bibliometric techniques and regression analysis. The paper is organized as follows: section reviews related literature on knowledge flow, interdisciplinarity and citations, and the interaction between HS and HSS; the following section explains the data and methodology in detail; the fourth section presents the results; and in the final section, we provide discussion and conclude our findings
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