Are research projects by universities tackling societal challenges more interdisciplinary? Evidence from Horizon 2020

This research note draws on the funded research projects in Horizon 2020 as recorded in the CORDIS database. Our emphasis lies in positioning the Flemish universities with respect to interdisciplinary research. The assumption is that the need for interdisciplinary research will be the most outspoken in the programme part on societal challenges compared to the other two major programme parts on excellent science and industrial leadership.
We compare various measures of interdisciplinarity of the r…

This research note draws on the funded research projects in Horizon 2020 as recorded in the CORDIS database. Our emphasis lies in positioning the Flemish universities with respect to interdisciplinary research. The assumption is that the need for interdisciplinary research will be the most outspoken in the programme part on societal challenges compared to the other two major programme parts on excellent science and industrial leadership.
We compare various measures of interdisciplinarity of the research projects by the Flemish universities to the other higher education institutes. Next, we position the Flemish universities to those of the French Community. Finally, we compare the Flemish higher education institutes to other European countries: the four most important European trade partners and five knowledge-intensive small open economies.