Collaboration in science plays an important role in the production as in the dissemination of a new scientific knowledge. Even there is hard to define the borders of scientific collaboration, the term is often operationalized through the co-authorship of scientific bibliographic units, which represents one of the most important results of a scientific collaboration. Based on the personal researchers’ bibliographies, the co-authorship networks can be constructed. These networks enable us to study the relationship between some researchers’ characteristics and the patterns of establishing new co-authorship ties. Furthermore, it allows us to study the structure of that kind of networks.
Kronegger et al. (2011), who studied the co-authorship networks of four scientific disciplines in four five years periods, confirmed the hypothesis about the multi-core—semi-periphery—periphery structure. In the current work, the analysis is done on the level of almost all scientific disciplines, according to the Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS). Beside the structure of co-authorship networks, the current work also addresses the question of the stability of scientific collaboration teams across scientific fields.
The structure of co-authorship networks of Slovenian researchers is examined using the pre-specified blockmodeling, while the stability of obtained clusters of researchers is measured with one of three proposed Modified Adjusted Rand Indices. In the context of co-authorship networks in two time periods, some researchers can enter or leave the network in the second time period. This implies that the classification (blockmodeling) is performed on two different sets of units for the first and for the second time period. The Modified Adjusted Rand Indices enable us to compare two clusterings, obtained on two different sets of units, where one set of units is a subset of another set of units. Moreover, the merging and splitting of clusters in time have a different effects on the value of proposed indices.
The assumed network structure multi-core—semi-periphery—periphery exists in all analysed scientific disciplines. The average core size is statistically significantlly (p < 0.05) higher in the first time period (5.6 researchers) compared to the second time period (4.4 researchers). Depending on the field, the average core size is statistically significant (p < 0.05) higher in the fields of the natural and technical sciences (4.6 researchers) that in the fields of the Social sciences and Humanities (3.8 researchers). The stability of cores on the level of scientific disciplines is relatively low. Instability of cores is more the consequence of many short term collaborations rather than splitting of cores. On the level of scientific fields, the average stability of cores is statistically significant (p < 0.05) higher in the fields of the Engineering sciences and technologies and the Medical sciences in comparison to the Humanities, while on the level of merged scientific fields into the natural and technical sciences and social sciences and humanities, there is no difference in the average stability of obtained cores (the value of MARI1 is 0.21).
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