  This paper explores the relationship between interdisciplinarity and research
pertaining to local issues. Using Colombian publications from 1991 until 2011
in the Web of Science, we investigate the relationship between the degree of
interdisciplinarity and the local orientation of the articles. We find that a
higher degree of interdisciplinarity in a publication is associated with a
greater emphasis on Colombian issues. In particular, our results suggest that
research that combines cognitively disparate disciplines, what we refer to as
distal interdisciplinarity, tends to be associated with more local focus of
research. We discuss the implications of these results in the context of
policies aiming to foster the local socio-economic impact of research in
developing countries.
