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The collaboration behavior of top scientists

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Abstract

The intention of this work is to analyze top scientists’ collaboration behavior at the “international”, “domestic extramural” and “intramural” levels, and compare it to that of their lesser performing colleagues. The field of observation consists of the entire faculty of the Italian academic system, and so the coauthorship of scientific publications by over 12,000 professors. The broader aim is to improve understanding of the causal nexus between research collaboration and performance. The analysis is thus longitudinal, over two successive five-year periods. Results show a strong increase in the propensity to collaborate at domestic level (both extramural and intramural), however this is less for scientists who remain or become top, than it is for their lower-performing colleagues. In contrast, the increase in international collaboration behavior is greater for scientists who become or remain top than it is for their peers. The increase in productivity by those who acquire top scientist status is due precisely to the greater average impact of the publications achieved in collaboration with foreign colleagues.

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Notes

  1. The complete list is accessible at http://attiministeriali.miur.it/UserFiles/115.htm, last accessed October 25, 2018.

  2. http://cercauniversita.cineca.it/php5/docenti/cerca.php, last accessed October 25, 2018.

  3. The analysis omits the SDSs where over 50% of professors have no publications indexed in the WoS, over the period of observation.

  4. Refer to Abramo (2018) for a thorough discussion about the definition and bibliometric measurement of impact.

  5. Similar indicators are presented by Martín-Sempere, Garzón-Garcia and Rey-Rocha (2008) and Ductor (2015).

  6. Note that the percentages of No–Yes TSs and Yes–No TSs do not coincide because TSs are the top productive professors in the overall population (larger than the dataset under analysis).

  7. The analysis does not include UDAs 11 and 13 (Pedagogy and psychology; Economics and statistics), given the low number of observations in some classes of collaboration.

  8. With reference to equation [1].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Studies in Research Evaluation, Institute for System Analysis and Computer Science (IASI-CNR), National Research Council of Italy, Istituto di Analisi dei Sistemi e Informatica, Ricerche, Via dei Taurini 19, 00185, Rome, Italy

    Giovanni Abramo

  2. Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Impresa, Laboratory for Studies in Research Evaluation (IASI-CNR), University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Via del Politecnico 1, 00133, Rome, Italy

    Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo

  3. Research Value S.R.L., Research Value, Via Michelangelo Tilli 39, 00156, Rome, Italy

    Flavia Di Costa

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  1. Giovanni Abramo
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  2. Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo
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  3. Flavia Di Costa
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Correspondence to Giovanni Abramo.

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Abramo, G., D’Angelo, C.A. & Di Costa, F. The collaboration behavior of top scientists. Scientometrics 118, 215–232 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2970-9

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