Cross-disciplinary research: co-evaluation and co-publication practices of the CNRS laboratories

A major stake for national or international research organisations and R&D systems is to keep on funding traditional scientific disciplines while promoting inter-disciplinarity. Characterisation of cross-disciplinary relationships between scientific communities is an essential step to be able to identify cross-disciplinary research areas which are promising for scientific and technological innovation. In the present paper, we try to observe such links through co-evaluation and co-publication practices of CNRS laboratories and their evolution during the 1990s. Our work is based on the 40 sub-disciplinary assessment committees of the multidisciplinary organisation. Results show numerous links and reveal multiple types of behaviour. Sub-disciplines of material and engineering sciences are relatively well established while sub-disciplines of life sciences are evolving towards a more or less stable alliance with the other disciplines. Moreover, geosciences sub-disciplines tend to present contrasted co-evaluation and co-publications practices.