This paper is part of a broader project dedicated to the study of scientific collaboration in the Brazilian public university system. The study’s main objective is to characterize interdisciplinary practices in the universe of Brazilian federal universities. First a selection was made of 8,948 scientific journals published from 1997 to 2007 and indexed by the WebQualis System created by Capes (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior) and/or by the Web of Science developed by the International Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). Then a sample of 1.206 co-authored articles written by researchers belonging to different institutions was selected. These articles were identified by WebQualis or the Web of Science as being inter or multi-disciplinary in nature. Using bibliometric indicators and social network analysis, is was possible to detect and visualize interdisciplinary collaboration networks and, based upon the selected set of indexed articles, provide an initial picture of interdisciplinary practices in Brazil.