Research on the Layout and Association Characteristics of Independently-set Interdisciplines in China Zenghui Yue *, Guoting Yuan ** and Haiyun Xu ** * yzh66123@126.com 0000-0002-9192-9071 School of Medical Information Engineering, Jining Medical University, China ** guotingyuan@hotmail.com; xuhaiyunnemo@gmail.com School of Foreign Languages, Jining Medical University, China Business School, Shandong University of Technology, China Intersection and integration of disciplines is an important feature of the science and technology development, and a key source for the emergence of new disciplines. So developing interdisciplines actively is an effective path to promote sci-tech innovation and the high-quality development of higher education. With the list of interdisciplines set up independently by colleges and universities in China as the research object, the quantitative distribution and association features of independently-set interdisciplines and their supporting disciplines are systematically analyzed by means of statistical analysis, social network analysis, etc. The findings are as follows. Management Science and Engineering and Computer Science and Technology are the two most important source disciplines for independently-set interdisciplines in China, and Engineering Science is the core force in promoting the development of them; there are prominent cohesion effects of closely related first-level disciplines that supports independently-set interdisciplines; the level of interdisciplines needs further improvements; the mediating roles of different disciplines and their impact on intersection and integration of knowledge indicate certain differences. 1. Introduction With the acceleration of a new round of sci-tech revolution and industrial transformation, some important scientific issues and key core technologies have shown signs of revolutionary breakthroughs, new disciplinary branches and growth points are emerging. The in-depth interdisciplinary integration demands high-level innovative, interdisciplinary and applied talents for economic and social development. Faced with the new challenges of knowledge innovation in economic and social development, colleges and universities shall promote disciplinary development of higher education and improve the ability to cultivate high-level innovative talents by effectively advancing the interdisciplinary integration (Hong, 2022). Interdisciplines are new disciplines formed by the intersection and integration of multiple disciplines. With concepts, theories and research methods different from the existing first- level disciplines, they have become a new field for discipline and knowledge development (Huang et al., 2022; Nakhoda et al., 2023). By means of citation analysis, author analysis, and text analysis, from the scientific production activities, disciplinary knowledge dissemination and exchanges of researches, academic literature, journals, and disciplines, the interdisciplinary features and laws are explored and summarized with quantitative methods of mathematical statistics, network analysis, etc. A wealth of research finds have been obtained in both theoretical and practical studies on such aspects as interdisciplinary structure and visualization, interdisciplinary index measurement, interdisciplinary causes and dynamic mechanism, interdisciplinary evaluation and application, interdisciplinary paths and evolution models (Van Leeuwen & Tijssen, 2000; Leydesdorff et al., 2019; Chi & Glänzel, 2022; Fan et al., 2022; Laursen et al., 2022; Yu et al., 2023; Zhou et al., 2023). In December 2020, the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council and the Ministry of Education of China set up the 14th discipline category of Interdisciplinary, which consists of two first-level disciplines, which are Integrated Circuit Science and Engineering and National security. In