  The current work addresses a theme previously unexplored in the literature:
that of whether the results arising from research activity in fields other than
the scientist's pri-mary field have greater value than the others.
Operationally, the authors proceed by identifying: the scientific production of
each researcher under observation; field classifi-cation of the publications;
the field containing the greatest number of the researcher's publications;
attribution of value of each publication. The results show that
diversifica-tion at the aggregate level does not pay off, although there are
some exceptions at the level of individual disciplines. The implications at
policy level are notable. Since the in-centive systems of research
organizations are based on the impact of scientific output, the scientists
concerned could resist engaging in multidisciplinary projects.
