Published at MetaROR
February 11, 2026
Table of contents
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:
This article was presented at the STI-ENID 2025 conference.
Editors
Ludo Waltman
Ludo Waltman
Editorial assessment
by Ludo Waltman
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.
Peer review 1
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?
Peer review 2
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)!
Author response
We would like to thank both reviewers and the editor for their careful reading of the manuscript, their thoughtful feedback, and their constructive suggestions. We are grateful for their positive assessment of the article and for recognising the value of sharing practical experiences from research assessment and the evaluation of interdisciplinary research.
The comments have helped us clarify key aspects of the article, strengthen the conceptual discussion of interdisciplinarity, and better explain the rationale, design, and implementation of the assessment process. In revising the manuscript, we have particularly focused on providing additional context for the assessment approach, clarifying the role of interdisciplinarity in RAUH 2025, and further elaborating on the relationship between qualitative self-assessment and quantitative indicators. Following the editor’s recommendations for enhanced transparency, we also added a Data Availability Statement, a Competing Interest Statement, and a Funding Source Statement.
Response to Reviewer 1
We thank the reviewer for the positive evaluation of the article as a practical contribution to research assessment and for the thoughtful suggestions for further development.
Several of the reviewer’s comments concerned the transferability of the approach, the conditions required for successful implementation, the role of trust in enhancement-led evaluation, and the broader lessons that may be relevant for other institutions. To address these points, we have expanded the discussion of the assessment process and its objectives and have provided additional reflections on the benefits of a participatory and narrative-based approach to evaluating interdisciplinary research.
The reviewer also requested further information regarding the assessment framework, including the structure of the self-assessment process, the interpretation of interdisciplinarity, and the relationship between self-assessment and institutional decision-making. In response, we expanded the description of the self-assessment template and the guiding questions designed to support narrative reflection on interdisciplinarity.
We appreciate the reviewer’s suggestion to provide additional practical details, such as examples of narratives, resource requirements, and future plans for similar exercises. While these topics are highly relevant, a comprehensive treatment of them would exceed the scope of the present article. We nevertheless acknowledge their importance and see them as valuable directions for future reporting and reflection once the assessment process has been completed in full and its outcomes can be evaluated more systematically.
Response to Reviewer 2
We thank the reviewer for the encouraging assessment of the article and for recognising the value of collaborative and formative approaches to research evaluation.
In response to the reviewer’s comments, we have strengthened the contextualisation of the study and expanded the discussion of why interdisciplinarity was selected as a specific focus of the assessment. The revised manuscript now clarifies that this focus was established as part of the objectives of RAUH 2025 and provides additional context regarding the institutional motivations behind the exercise. We also expanded the description of the interdisciplinarity module and the structure of the self-assessment process in order to make the practical implementation of the assessment more transparent.
The reviewer also encouraged us to position the assessment approach more clearly in relation to existing practices elsewhere. To address this point, we have added a reference to Uppsala University’s research evaluation. As no directly comparable model was identified, the article now explains more explicitly how the approach was developed for the University of Helsinki context.
Several comments concerned the conceptualisation and assessment of interdisciplinarity. In response, we have added a definition of interdisciplinary research, and we have expanded the discussion of why collaboration indicators, publication keywords, and other metric approaches alone do not adequately capture the integration of disciplinary perspectives and methods. The revised manuscript therefore provides a stronger rationale for the use of qualitative and narrative approaches alongside quantitative evidence.
The reviewer also suggested further clarification of the relationship between narrative assessment and metric data. To address this, we expanded the discussion towards the end of Section 4 and explained more clearly how qualitative self-assessment can complement available indicators and provide insights into aspects of interdisciplinary research that are not readily observable through metrics alone.
We also appreciate the reviewer’s broader suggestions regarding additional examples, wider theoretical framing, and further discussion of strengths and limitations. Although not all of these suggestions could be incorporated within the scope of the current article, they have been valuable in informing our reflections on future development of the assessment approach and future publications describing its outcomes.
Once again, we thank both reviewers and the editor for their constructive engagement with the manuscript. Their comments have helped us improve the clarity, transparency, and overall quality of the article. We believe that the revised version provides a clearer account of the rationale and implementation of the interdisciplinarity assessment and better communicates its contribution to ongoing discussions on research evaluation.
