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A gender analysis of top scientists’ collaboration behavior: evidence from Italy

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Abstract

This work analyzes the differences in collaboration behavior between males and females among a particular type of scholars: top scientists, and as compared to non top scientists. The field of observation consists of the Italian academic system and the co-authorships of scientific publications by 11,145 professors. The results obtained from a cross-sectional analysis covering the 5-year period 2006–2010 show that there are no significant differences in the overall propensity to collaborate in the top scientists of the two genders. At the level of single disciplines there are no differences in collaboration behavior, except in the case of: (1) international collaborations, for mathematics and chemistry—where the propensity for collaboration is greater for males; and (2) extramural domestic collaborations in physics, in which it is the females that show greater propensity for collaboration. Because international collaboration is positively correlated to research performance, findings can inform science policy aimed at increasing the representation of female top performers.

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Notes

  1. The complete list is accessible on http://attiministeriali.miur.it/UserFiles/115.htm, last accessed 7 May 2019.

  2. In the Italian university system, competitions for recruitment and career advancement are regulated by specific law, and occur at SDS level. Professors are assigned the SDS they competed in.

  3. It must be noted that different fractional counting across disciplines does not cause any bias, because the top 10% scientists are extracted from each field. To exemplify, if we did not weight the authors’ contribution in Cardiology, the top 10% scientists in cardiology might change, but all the remaining TSs (from the other fields) would be exactly the same.

  4. http://cercauniversita.cineca.it/php5/docenti/cerca.php, last accessed 7 May 2019.

  5. It is no surprise that the Italian National Agency for Research Evaluation (ANVUR) does not apply bibliometrics to measure university performance in such disciplines, in the national research assessment exercises (VQR).

  6. We exclude professors who do not publish, because it would make no sense to compare collaboration behavior of those who do not collaborate because they do not publish. It might be questioned whether it makes sense to investigate the collaboration behavior of scientists with one publication only. We do that because, after all, it is the collaboration behavior of that type of scientists. Moreover, they represent only 7.3% (6.9% among males, and 8.2% among females) of the dataset.

  7. For a thorough analysis of the publications per scientist distributions across field, we refer the reader to D’Angelo and Abramo (2015).

  8. Similar indicators are presented by Martín-Sempere et al. (2008), and Ductor (2015).

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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, Via dei Taurini 19, 00185, Rome, Italy

    Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo

  2. Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Impresa, Università degli Studi di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’, Via del Politecnico 1, 00133, Rome, Italy

    Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo

  3. Research Value s.r.l., 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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Correspondence to Giovanni Abramo.

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Abramo, G., D’Angelo, C.A. & Di Costa, F. A gender analysis of top scientists’ collaboration behavior: evidence from Italy. Scientometrics 120, 405–418 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03136-6

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