  The growing complexity of challenges involved in scientific progress demands
ever more frequent application of competencies and knowledge from different
scientific fields. The present work analyzes the degree of collaboration among
scientists from different disciplines in order to identify the most frequent
"combinations of knowledge" in research activity. The methodology adopts an
innovative bibliometric approach based on the disciplinary affiliation of
publication co-authors. The field of observation includes all publications
(173,134) indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) for the five
years 2004-2008, authored by all scientists in the hard sciences (43,223) at
Italian universities (68). The analysis examines 205 research fields grouped in
nine disciplines. Identifying the fields with the highest potential of
interdisciplinary collaboration is useful to inform research polices at
national and regional levels, as well as management strategies at the
institutional level.
