Published at MetaROR

February 11, 2026

Table of contents

Cite this article as:

Kivilaakso, A., Moore, H., & Kolhinen, J. (2025, October 24). Exploring interdisciplinarity – raising self-awareness through a comprehensive research assessment. The 29th Annual International Conference on Science and Technology Indicators (STI-ENID), Bristol. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17430883

Curated

Article

Exploring interdisciplinarity – raising self-awareness through a comprehensive research assessment

Aura Kivilaakso1, Henna Moore1, Johanna Kolhinen1

1. Research Services, University of Helsinki, Finland

Originally published on October 24, 2025 at: 

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17430883

This article was presented at the STI-ENID 2025 conference. 

Abstract

In 2025, the University of Helsinki is conducting a comprehensive research assessment (RAUH 2025) with a focus on interdisciplinarity. The purpose of RAUH 2025 is to produce an overall view of the quality and impact of research at the University of Helsinki, identify emerging and strong research areas, and support the renewal of research. Capturing interdisciplinarity in the assessment has been a challenge, as the university lacks data that illuminates the integration of disciplines in research. At the University of Helsinki, research assessment prioritizes qualitative data and emphasizes collaboration and learning in the assessment process. Therefore, a dedicated module on interdisciplinarity was designed for the RAUH 2025 assessment. Interdisciplinarity was explored in a separate university-level self-assessment exercise. This paper discusses the design and benefits of the interdisciplinarity module, the academic community's participation in the process, and the support provided by Research Services before and during the self-assessment period.

1.  Introduction

The University of Helsinki is Finland’s largest, oldest and internationally most esteemed research university. In Finland, the Finnish Universities Act (558/2009) requires that Finnish universities assess frequently their research and its impact and publish the results openly (Universities Act 558/2009). Research at the University of Helsinki has been assessed in 2018– 2019, 2012, 2005, and 1999. The current assessment takes place in 2025 as the university conducts a comprehensive research assessment (RAUH 2025) with a focus on interdisciplinarity and the renewal of research.

The purpose of RAUH 2025 is to produce an overall view of the quality and impact of research at the University of Helsinki, identify emerging and strong research areas, and support the renewal of research. This initiative aligns with the university’s strategy for 2021–2030, which emphasizes promoting in-depth and innovative discipline-specific knowledge, interdisciplinary research, and high-standard teaching (University of Helsinki 2025a). The results of the 2025 assessment will provide insights for the strategic period starting in 2031.

The University of Helsinki has made long-term efforts to promote interdisciplinarity, but in terms of research assessment, it has proven challenging to form a comprehensive picture even of the current state. Considering the qualitative nature of the phenomenon of interdisciplinarity, the attempt of measuring it with metric data poses a challenge. While publication collaborations between faculties and independent institutes can be examined, this data does not fully capture the integration of perspectives in research. Collaboration alone indicates joint activity, but it does not reveal the degree to which paradigms are integrated or the quality of new knowledge produced through such cooperation. For this reason, the assessment also required a qualitative, narrative approach capable of capturing the depth and nature of interdisciplinary research activities. The emphasis on the RAUH 2025 assessment aligns with the principles of CoARA, prioritizing qualitative information, collaboration, and learning process as the basis for the assessment (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment 2022). A key feature of RAUH 2025 is a dedicated module addressing interdisciplinarity in research, which will be explored in the self-assessment reports of all evaluated units and as a separate university-level self-assessment exercise.

This paper examines the updated RAUH assessment framework focusing on the implementation of the interdisciplinarity module conducted with an applied, narrative-oriented approach. It discusses the design of the experimental self-assessment module, examines the benefits of the assessment framework, the academic community’s possibilities to participate in the evaluation process, and the support provided by the Research Services before and during the self-assessment period. The article explores the path to addressing the challenge and obtaining a description of the current state of interdisciplinary research without exact metric data and numerical indicators of interdisciplinarity.

2. The University of Helsinki and its strategic goal to promote interdisciplinarity in research

University of Helsinki with its academic community of 40 000 is a comprehensive university with 11 faculties and four research-focused independent institutes (University of Helsinki 2025b). Research at the University of Helsinki is based on strong discipline-specific expertise. This is a prerequisite for excellent multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and thematic research. During the strategy period 2021–2030, research and teaching are inspired by four themes (University of Helsinki 2025c).

One of the goals of the University of Helsinki in the strategy period 2021–2030 is: “The University will enjoy an increasingly established international standing as a scientific partner, especially thanks to its groundbreaking discipline-specific expertise as well as its multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research.” (University of Helsinki 2025d.) This strategic objective was shaped by feedback from the RAUH 2018–2019 assessment panels, all of which underscored the vital role of curiosity-driven and interdisciplinary research in a research-intensive university (Mälkki & al. 2019, 6). As part of the broader strategy process, the University of Helsinki launched extensive internal discussions to inform its 2021–2030 strategy, during which the RAUH 2018–2019 assessment panels’ feedback was actively considered. These discussions reaffirmed interdisciplinarity as a cornerstone for addressing complex global challenges through research. The university has been actively promoting this goal through strategic development of its research activities throughout the entire strategy period. Therefore, in Rector’s decision on the new research assessment project, it was defined that RAUH 2025 would also aim to support the renewal of research at the university. This objective was subsequently interpreted as a commitment to advancing multi- and interdisciplinary approaches in research conducted at the University of Helsinki.

To promote the common understanding of the meaning and definition of strategic goal of multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research and to put the strategic themes into practise, the university’s academic units prepared Roadmaps for Implementing Research Themes in 2022. In that connection, the university re-evaluated and updated the original terminology by replacing “multi- and cross-disciplinarity” with an umbrella term “interdisciplinarity”. These roadmaps serve as tools for the management and development of research activities. In addition to the units’ roadmaps, a university-wide Roadmap for Implementing Research Themes has been prepared as a collaborative effort that is based on dialogue between the leadership of the academic units, research community and Research Services. The university-wide roadmap serves as a shared view of the direction in which the university wants to lead research activities in the academic units. It highlights areas of research activity in which shared development is considered particularly important for achieving the strategic goal: fostering discipline-specific expertise and interdisciplinarity, enhancing collaboration and partnership, and transcending boundaries and being flexible. The roadmap will help academic units choose a course of action and from there work towards the shared strategic goal. (University of Helsinki 2023.)

In strategic discussions on research activities at the University of Helsinki and as part of RAUH 2025, the concept of interdisciplinarity is understood broadly to include multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches. These modes of research differ in how disciplines interact and integrate their knowledge. In a multidisciplinary setting, researchers from various fields contribute their expertise in parallel, each maintaining their disciplinary perspective while addressing a shared topic. Interdisciplinary research, on the other hand, involves more dynamic and reciprocal collaboration, where disciplinary boundaries are crossed, and perspectives are integrated to create a more cohesive understanding. This often leads to a deeper appreciation of each other’s fields and a stronger interdependence between disciplines. Transdisciplinary research goes beyond academic boundaries altogether, fostering collaboration between academic and non-academic actors to co-create knowledge around complex, real-world problems. This approach emphasizes problem orientation and often results in the formation of new conceptual frameworks that transcend traditional disciplinary structures. (Willamo & al. 2022; Wernli & Ohlmeyer 2023.) Importantly, interdisciplinary research that generates novel insights does not reject disciplinary expertise or the foundations of prior scientific work. Creative interdisciplinary research integrates diverse perspectives not by dissolving disciplinary identities, but by bringing together distinct “landscapes of knowledge” in productive tension. This collision of epistemic frameworks enables the emergence of new approaches without undermining the value of disciplinary depth. (Huutoniemi & al. 2010.)

In the autumn of 2023, the Board and leadership of the University of Helsinki assembled in a workshop to discuss the issues of multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity in the university’s research activities. The workshop aimed to assess the current state and methods of multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity at the university through group discussions. Additionally, the workshop included discussions on what the university has learned from its profiling actions that promote interdisciplinarity in research. The goal was to look towards the future and consider measures for change at the University of Helsinki.

However, it became evident that there is no clear picture of the state of interdisciplinary research at the university. There was a demand for more metric data and indicators, but it was also noted that the overall picture remains fragmented and incomplete. It was concluded that richer information is needed to serve as a basis for development. Consequently, the RAUH 2025 research assessment framework was updated to address this conclusion, with a particular focus on the potential for research renewal and interdisciplinarity.

During the collection of RAUH’s metric data, it was found that the university’s existing methods do not provide reliable indicators on interdisciplinary research. For example, analysing publication data would require examining the scientific content of individual publications if interdisciplinarity would be assessed beyond the perspectives of keywords or collaboration. While, for example, keywords can highlight prominent research themes, they do not capture the degree of integration between disciplines or the nature of methodological collaboration. Assessing interdisciplinarity meaningfully requires deeper analysis of the content, context, and connections within and between research outputs – something that keyword-based metrics cannot adequately reflect. Therefore, it became clear that the RAUH 2025 self-assessment materials should include comprehensive narrative reflection on how the topic is perceived across different academic units and at the university level.

3. Enhancement-led assessment method

The University of Helsinki research assessment framework was renewed in 2018–2019 with an enhancement-led approach to better reflect the evolving landscape of academic research and its societal impact. The assessment framework is based on the idea of continuous development and quality enhancement. A key driver for the framework development was to support the university’s 2021–2030 strategy implementation (University of Helsinki 2025d). Enhancement-led evaluation focuses on the development and improvement of activities and practices. The subject under review is assessed from multiple perspectives, identifying strengths and areas for improvement. Goals are set for development, actions are agreed upon, and the achievement of goals is monitored. (University of Helsinki 2025e.) Enhancement-led research assessment aims to produce an overview of the quality and impact of the research conducted at the University of Helsinki, to help identify future research opportunities and support the renewal of research. The assessment is based on self-assessment reports prepared by each Unit of Assessment, highlighting their research strengths and areas for development, and metric data that support self-assessments.

The key value of research assessment at the University of Helsinki, in line with the principles of the SCOPE model, is inclusiveness (INORMS Research Evaluation Group 2021). This means that the people being evaluated play a crucial role in both the planning of the evaluation and the interpretation and utilization of the evaluation results. Involving the university community in the planning and interpretation of evaluations ensures the relevance and impact of the evaluation. The knowledge base for the assessment consists of self-assessment reports, metric data compiled according to the principles of the Leiden Manifesto (Hicks & al. 2015), and feedback and recommendations from external assessment panel.

In the RAUH assessment framework, self-assessment is primarily a tool for improving research conditions (Kivilaakso & Kolhinen 2025). The aim of the assessment is to achieve meaningful and impactful insights and shared discussions that respect the views of all participants. Assessment processes are designed to promote continuous learning, facilitate information sharing, and build a stronger and more unified understanding among all participants. In the comprehensive research assessment, the essential element is the learning process, where shared discussions, evaluation data, and the expertise of the external evaluation panel support decision-making and solution development related to the university’s and its units’ research activities. The foundation of the assessment process is trust, which ensures that all parties feel valued and respected. (Moitus & Kamppi 2020.)

The assessment framework 2025 includes faculties and research-focused independent institutes, in all 15 Units of Assessment. Each criterion – Scientific Quality, Societal Impact, and Research Environment – includes detailed sub-criteria that serve as the foundation for the self-assessment reports and guide the work of the esteemed assessment panel. In 2025, the assessment process no longer assigns grades, as previous ratings (mainly “very good” or “excellent”) were considered to have limited value for development. Instead, a comprehensive university-wide self-assessment report focusing on interdisciplinarity has been included in the assessment framework. The university-level report is collaboratively written by the university’s Research Council, Vice-Rector responsible for research, doctoral education and sustainable development, and Research Services, representing a novel and experimental approach to research assessment aimed purely at enhancing self-understanding and looking towards the future. This approach aims to provide a deeper narrative on the university’s research activities and actions taken, enhancing the understanding of interdisciplinary research.

4. Implementation of the self-assessment with a focus on interdisciplinary research

4.1 ​Integrating interdisciplinarity into unit- and university-level self-assessments

At the University of Helsinki, previous research assessments had not featured a thematic emphasis comparable to that of the RAUH 2025 assessment. As a result, the integration of interdisciplinarity into a comprehensive research assessment had to be conceptualized and developed with no existing model to follow. The university’s Research Services did, however, examine how other universities had approached similar evaluations. For instance, in 2024, Uppsala University’s research evaluation focused on the university’s management and support structures for research infrastructure, as well as on multi- and interdisciplinarity (Uppsala University 2024). Although there were some shared objectives, no directly comparable model to the University of Helsinki’s research assessment exercise was identified. Consequently, one of the first tasks of the RAUH 2025 Steering Group was to consider how interdisciplinarity could be meaningfully addressed within a comprehensive university-wide research assessment, which was organized into 15 distinct Units of Assessment.

To ensure a consistent and meaningful integration of interdisciplinarity across the assessment, it was included as dedicated subheadings into the definitions of each of the three main assessment criteria: Scientific Quality, Societal Impact, and Research Environment. Moreover, interdisciplinarity was systematically included in each unit-level self-assessment report through a standardized template, in which the three main assessment criteria also served as the main section headings. Under each of these, a set of subheadings was provided, including one specifically dedicated to “Collaboration and interdisciplinarity”. In addition to the unit-level reports, the RAUH 2025 Steering Group decided that a separate university-level self- assessment module would be developed, with a specific focus on interdisciplinarity. The university-level self-assessment was intended to provide the assessment panel with essential contextual information, including the university’s organizational structure and the Finnish education system. Given that research activities take place within academic units, and that the assessment criteria and unit-level report templates were tailored accordingly, the structure of the university-level report could not simply mirror that of the units. Instead, the university-level self-assessment had to be developed as a distinct and coherent narrative, capable of capturing and conveying a comprehensive understanding of the state of research and interdisciplinarity at the University of Helsinki. The narrative-based report could also respond to the challenge identified by the University Board in its 2023 workshop (see, Chapter 2).

The university-level self-assessment report was developed through close collaboration between the University of Helsinki’s Research Council and the Research Services. As a starting point for the writing process, the Research Council received a set of metric-based data compiled by the university’s Institutional Research and Analysis Unit and the Helsinki University Library. This data included basic and readily available indicators, such as publication volumes and their distribution, the amount of external competitive research funding, and figures related to research and teaching staff. While useful as a general overview, the data provided limited insight into more qualitative or interdisciplinary aspects of research, thus highlighting the importance of reflective and narrative contributions in the report.

The Research Council, composed of vice-deans responsible for research, directors of research-intensive independent institutes, the director of the Doctoral School, a doctoral researcher appointed by the Student Union, and the director of development from Research Services, is chaired by the Vice-Rector responsible for research, doctoral education and sustainable development. As a multidisciplinary body representing the university’s research-focused units, the Council was well-positioned to lead the preparation of a report that would reflect the university’s interdisciplinary strengths. The writing process was structured around three facilitated meetings, during which the Council discussed the university’s research landscape, strengths, and areas for development, with a particular emphasis on interdisciplinarity. Between these sessions, the report was drafted collaboratively by two Council members, the Research Services, and the Vice-Rector. It was particularly encouraging that, through the self-assessment process, the Research Council came to recognize itself as both a key interdisciplinary actor and a structural strength in advancing interdisciplinarity at the University of Helsinki. This self-recognition not only affirmed the Council’s strategic role in fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration but also highlighted its potential to lead and support the university’s broader efforts in developing a more integrated research culture.

The writing of the university-level self-assessment report was integrated into the university’s new training programme on the strategic management of research activities, which was specifically designed for members of the Research Council. Grounded in theoretical perspectives on academic leadership, the training provided participants with tools to reflect on and develop their leadership roles in strategic management of research. Writing the self-assessment report as a group task fostered dialogue between theory and practice. (Kivilaakso 2025.) The training programme was designed to support participants in real time, fostering motivation and engagement. Its pedagogy emphasized authentic professional roles, inductive learning, timely guidance, active involvement, and continuous development. (Al Mamun & Lawrie 2024; Clark & Mayer 2012.) These elements supported the writing process by creating a shared purpose and enabling practical application of leadership concepts. The alignment between the training and the RAUH 2025 self-assessment created synergies, allowing Council members to contribute to institutional strategy while developing leadership skills. This interplay is expected to enhance the university’s research leadership and promote a more integrated, reflective approach to managing interdisciplinary research.

4.2 Benefits of the self-assessment

Implementing a qualitative, narrative-based self-assessment with a focus on interdisciplinarity has provided the University of Helsinki with critical insights that quantitative metrics alone cannot capture. While publication data and collaboration indicators offer useful information about joint activity, they fall short in revealing the depth of integration between disciplinary perspectives or the quality of new knowledge generated through such collaboration. The narrative approach enabled the university to reflect on its interdisciplinary research landscape at an institutional level – identifying strategic priorities, structural enablers, and barriers to collaboration. At the same time, faculties and research-focused institutes engaged in similar reflection through their self-assessment reports, articulating emerging research directions and evaluating their own interdisciplinary practices.

This method has supported the university’s strategic goals by helping to map its interdisciplinary landscape more comprehensively. It has highlighted both successful practices – such as cross-faculty initiatives and large-scale projects supported by external funding – and areas requiring further development, including internal funding mechanisms and support structures. The self-assessment also informed the design of future initiatives by surfacing bottom-up insights from researchers themselves.

Crucially, the process fostered a shared understanding of interdisciplinarity as a dynamic and evolving mode of research, aligned with the university’s ambition to lead in addressing complex societal challenges. It also laid the groundwork for more strategic engagement with external funding opportunities and partnerships. By integrating narrative reflection into the assessment process, the University of Helsinki has strengthened its capacity to manage, support, and evaluate interdisciplinary research in a way that is both academically beneficial and strategically aligned.

5. Conclusion

One of the most important lessons learned from the RAUH 2025 university-level self-assessment process was the critical role of structured, facilitated dialogue in producing meaningful evaluative knowledge. While the value of shared reflection is widely acknowledged, its significance in shaping a coherent and insightful understanding of, for example, interdisciplinarity cannot be overstated. The collaborative discussions within the Research Council enabled the emergence of shared interpretations that would not have surfaced through metric data alone.

A second key insight was the importance of balancing quantitative indicators with qualitative, narrative-based analysis. The metric data on publications, external funding, and staff offered a useful baseline. However, it was through narrative reflection that a more nuanced and context-sensitive understanding of research leadership and interdisciplinarity could be developed. In this case, the writing process was further supported by a training programme, which provided a structured framework for reflection and in some extent helped align theoretical insights with institutional development goals.

Looking ahead, the experience highlights the need to further develop narrative-based assessment methods. While metrics remain important, they must be complemented by more precise, context-sensitive indicators and reflective analysis that capture the complexity of interdisciplinary research (Hicks & al. 2015, 430). Moreover, the relevance of indicators varies across disciplines due to differing cultures of output production and citation practices, making meaningful comparisons particularly challenging in interdisciplinary contexts (Wilsdon & al. 2015, 55–58). This includes developing tools that better account for collaboration, knowledge integration, and the societal relevance of research across disciplinary boundaries.

A central question for future assessments is how to involve the broader academic community more effectively. While the Research Council played a key role in the university-level self-assessment, expanding participation to include a wider range of academic voices could enrich the process and increase its legitimacy. Strengthening academic community involvement would not only improve the quality and relevance of the assessment but also reinforce university democracy. When researchers are actively engaged in evaluating and shaping institutional research strategies, it fosters a sense of ownership, transparency, and shared responsibility for the university’s direction.

RAUH 2025 has laid a foundation for a more reflective, inclusive, and strategically aligned approach to research assessment – one that values both evidence and experience, and that can evolve to meet the complex demands of interdisciplinary research in the years to come.

Author contributions

Aura Kivilaakso: project administration, conceptualization, methodology, and writing, editing and reviewing the original draft.

Henna Moore: investigation, editing and reviewing the original draft.

Johanna Kolhinen: supervision and reviewing the original draft.

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Editors

Ludo Waltman
Editor-in-Chief

Ludo Waltman
Handling Editor

Editorial Assessment

by Ludo Waltman

DOI: 10.70744/MetaROR.242.1.ea

In this article the authors discuss the evaluation of interdisciplinarity in a research assessment exercise carried out by the University of Helsinki in 2025. The article has been reviewed by two reviewers. Reviewer 1 considers the article to be “a good showcase for research assessment in practice”. According to Reviewer 2, the article is “competently and clearly written” and the assessment approach taken by the University of Helsinki is “inspiring”. The reviewers did not identify any major weaknesses in the article. They do provide recommendations for clarifications, and they offer suggestions for ways in which the authors could further enrich their work. In particular, to help readers develop a deeper understanding of the way in which assessments of interdisciplinarity were performed, the reviewers suggest the authors could provide more information, for instance by sharing the standardized template or showing an example of a narrative.

Recommendations for enhanced transparency

  • Add a Data Availability Statement to report that no data are used.
  • Add a competing interest statement. Authors should report all competing interests, including not only financial interests, but any role, relationship, or commitment of an author that presents an actual or perceived threat to the integrity or independence of the research presented in the article. If no competing interests exist, authors should explicitly state this.
  • Add a funding source statement. Authors should report all funding in support of the research presented in the article. Grant reference numbers should be included. If no funding sources exist, explicitly state this in the article.

Competing interests: None.

Peer Review 1

Isabella Peters

DOI: 10.70744/MetaROR.242.1.rv1

The paper presents how and with what goals the University of Helsinki conducted a comprehensive research assessment exercise (RAUH) in 2025. The goal of this exercise is to “produce an overall view of the quality and impact of research at the University of Helsinki […] to provide insights for the strategic period starting in 2031”. Since the University of Helsinki actively promotes interdisciplinarity, it seeks to understand the state of interdisciplinary research at the university and to evaluate those activities – hence “[a] key feature of RAUH 2025 is a dedicated module addressing interdisciplinarity in research, which will be explored in the self-assessment reports of all evaluated units and as a separate university-level self-assessment exercise“. This module was developed since evaluating interdisciplinarity by solely using quantitative aspects of scholarship and/ or bibliometric data was found to be challenging and insufficient. A further goal of the RAUH is to develop and improve activities and practices via enhancement-led evaluation. The paper reports on the various steps taken in the RAUH as well as some lessons learned.

The paper is a good showcase for research assessment in practice. Given that implementation reports like this may inspire others to follow the University of Helsinki’s approach it would be valuable to add some more reflections on the process:

  • Do the authors think that the approach can be transferred to other universities? In other countries? Or to other topics than interdisciplinarity?
  • What are the requirements that make such an approach successful? What were aspects that the authors would change the next time?
  • If a university wants to follow the University of Helsinki’s roadmap: how much and what kind of resources need to be spent? (I know that this might be difficult to answer, but a rough estimate would be good to know anyway).
  • The authors state that “the foundation of the assessment process is trust, which ensures that all parties feel valued and respected”. This seems to be a crucial factor for a successful process – but how does the University of Helsinki facilitate/ensure this? What is needed to build trust?

Furthermore, presenting the standardized template or showing an example of a narrative would have been helpful to understand the scope, depth and implementation of the reflections on interdisciplinarity. If I understood correctly the University of Helsinki used the self-assessment reports to examine how interdisciplinarity was put into practice. But how did the university decide on whether “enough interdisciplinarity” (in terms of depth and breadth) has taken place or whether more investments are necessary? Is the self-reflection of the units a sufficient instrument to plan strategic actions? I would be thankful, if the authors could elaborate on that aspect.

In the text I would also like to read what are the future plans of the University of Helsinki? Are they going to conduct the same exercise in 2031?

Minor remark:

Only after having finished the paper, I understood what the authors meant by “the self-assessment is primarily a tool for improving research conditions”. At the position of the original sentence, it was unclear to me what conditions were meant or whether researchers would be able to improve their conditions which may be provided by the university. I guess you wanted to say that the self-assessment reports revealed how certain conditions (which?) have improved/hindered interdisciplinarity. Is that correct?

Competing interests: None.

Peer Review 2

Marta Natalia Wróblewska

DOI: 10.70744/MetaROR.242.1.rv2

The article is an interesting account of a research assessment carried out in 2025 at  the University of Helsinki (RUAH 2025). As a discussion of this specific topic it delivers what it promises.

The account of the process will be of interest to management teams and research services professionals of other institutions planning such evaluations (particularly in the Finnish context) or evaluators/policy-makers looking for ways in which to evaluate interdisciplinarity (which is not among the most frequent nor codified criteria of evaluation). In a context where metrics and managerially lead evaluations tend to dominate, RUAH 2025 is an inspiring example of a more collaborative and formative process drawing on self-assessment.

While the account is competently and clearly written, I felt the clarity of the paper could be further improved by adding some of the following:

  • A clearer explanation for why interdisciplinary was selected as the focus of the exercise (it is not among the most ‘popular’ criteria of evaluation, though the question of valorising interdisciplinary is gaining traction)
  • A similar explanation for what was intended by ‘renewal or research’ – why is it that research at University of Helsinki was considered in new of ‘renewal’?
  • “A key feature of RAUH 2025 is a dedicated module addressing interdisciplinarity in research, which will be explored in the self-assessment reports” – what does the module consist of? How are the self-assessment reports structured? This information would be crucial for readers exploring possible models of evaluating interdisciplinary, so I would recommend including a description of the module and a self-assessment template either in the text or as appendix.
  • The process of developing and implementing the evaluation, described in 4.1 is quite complex and perhaps not so easy to follow for someone who was not involved. Maybe adding a diagram (timeline) which would include the dates and stages of the process, parties involved, inputs and outputs would be helpful?
  • At points, the account reads as a bit ‘self-congratulatory’ (e.g. “The alignment between the training and the RAUH 2025 self-assessment created synergies, allowing Council members to contribute to institutional strategy while developing leadership skills. This interplay is expected to enhance the university’s research leadership and promote a more integrated, reflective approach to managing interdisciplinary research.”). Either hedging such statements, grounding them in data (e.g. survey) or/and adding a section about possible downsides/criticism of the exercise would make the account more balanced, as expected of an academic text.
  • “The narrative approach enabled the university to reflect on its interdisciplinary research landscape at an institutional level – identifying strategic priorities, structural enablers, and barriers to collaboration. At the same time, faculties and research-focused institutes…” Perhaps people (e.g. uni managers) should be the subject here rather than institutions?
  • “The self-assessment also informed the design of future initiatives by surfacing bottom-up insights from researchers themselves”. In what way? Perhaps an example?
  • “The metric data on publications, external funding, and staff offered a useful baseline” – from the beginning of the article I wasn’t sure if this was data related to interdisciplinary or more general points?
  • “While the Research Council played a key role in the university-level self-assessment, expanding participation to include a wider range of academic voices could enrich the process and increase its legitimacy”.  a wider range of academic voices – how many estimated participants at the various stages (maybe could be included in diagram)?

If the authors wanted to reach a broader readership interested in problems of evaluation, the process described could be presented in the context of a more general research question such as “how to evaluate interdisciplinarity”, “how to carry out a collaborative/formative evaluation of a HE institution”, “how to develop narrative-based assessment methods” and grounded in the appropriate literature. The current bibliography is appropriate to the scope of the paper, but could be expanded to include a broader and more recent evaluation literature if the scope were to be widened. All of these questions are relevant in current debates on research evaluation.

A marginal note. In my national context (Poland), interdisciplinary was an element of evaluation in our country-wide evaluation of research units. It was included under the ‘impact’ element, and authors could receive a +20% premium where the impact claimed drew on interdisciplinary research. Evaluators were instructed to verify if tools and methods of additional disciplines were used, to establish if the work was indeed interdisciplinary. Compared to the Polish model, I felt the approach developed by UoH was more reflexive and could teach those evaluated more about the qualities and possible directions for their work. This speaks to the value of the paper discussed beyond documenting the specific process at work in UoH.

It is commendable that Research Services professionals dedicate time to share their valuable insights from the evaluation process in the shape of an article. I wish the authors all the best in their professional development (and perhaps with future talks/papers)!

Competing interests: None.

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