Interdisciplinary research in Chemistry can lead to higher citation impact, but sometimes it takes longer for the recognition to happen. A new study looked at how different measures of interdisciplinarity affect the process of accumulating citations for scientific papers. They found that one measure, DIV, is more sensitive to the length of time it takes for a paper to reach its peak citations, and is more closely related to the nature of interdisciplinarity. In Chemistry, papers with higher interdisciplinarity may have delayed recognition but also have more sustainable citation impact after reaching their peak. This could explain why the relationship between interdisciplinarity and citation impact is sometimes inconsistent. Considering a longer time frame for citations may be a better way to evaluate the success of interdisciplinary research.