Scientific collaboration of researchers and organizations: a two-level blockmodeling approach
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Scientific collaboration of researchers and organizations: a two‑level blockmodeling approach Marjan Cugmas1 · Franc Mali1 · Aleš Žiberna1 Received: 24 April 2020 © Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary 2020
Abstract The development and successful implementation of R&D policies depends on understanding patterns of scientific collaboration (SC). Existing studies on SC typically focus on the individual level, despite SC occurring on many interdependent social levels. Therefore, this paper provides a simultaneous insight into SC patterns among researchers (individual level) and among organizations (organizational level) in the social sciences. SC on the individual level is operationalized by co-authorship of a scientific paper whereas two organizations are said to collaborate if they share a research project. Based on data for the period 2006–2015 retrieved from Slovenian national information systems, two-level collaboration networks were formed with respect to researchers in the social sciences field. These networks were analyzed using a k-means-based blockmodeling approach for linked networks. The results show a high level of interdisciplinary SC and a large organizational impact on individual collaborations. On the individual level, a structure with several cohesive clusters and a semi-periphery appears while, on the organizational level, a kind a core–periphery structure emerges in which both the core and periphery can be split into several clusters. The most surprising result indicates that SC on the level of organizations is often not reflected in common published scientific papers on the individual level (and vice versa). Keywords Social networks · Scientific collaboration · Multilevel networks · Co-authorship networks · Blockmodeling
Introduction In contemporary science, the interactions among scientists and their scientific collaboration (SC) are crucial processes entailed in knowledge sharing, developing human creativity, and creating novel ideas; namely, prerequisites for social and scientific innovations. SC
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s1119 2-020-03708-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Marjan Cugmas [email protected]‑lj.si 1
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Kardeljeva ploščad 5, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
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can be observed from different perspectives and this diversity contributes to the abundance of various terminologies, research approaches, and methodologies. SC may be defined and classified in several ways since, according to e.g. the units of the analysis given, the actors which are represented by nodes, the type of information used to develop the links between nodes, this might consist of interactions or information (Rogers et al. 2001; Shrum and Mullins 1988). While one can find many definitions and classifications of SC, two elements are common to them all: working together for a common goal, and sharing knowledge (Ha
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