Collaboration patterns in the German political science co-authorship network

Leifeld, P., Wankmüller, S., Berger, V. T.Z., Ingold, K. and Steiner, C. (2017) Collaboration patterns in the German political science co-authorship network. PLoS ONE, 12(4), e0174671. (doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0174671) (PMID:28388621) (PMCID:PMC5384752)

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Abstract

Research on social processes in the production of scientific output suggests that the collective research agenda of a discipline is influenced by its structural features, such as “invisible colleges” or “groups of collaborators” as well as academic “stars” that are embedded in, or connect, these research groups. Based on an encompassing dataset that takes into account multiple publication types including journals and chapters in edited volumes, we analyze the complete co-authorship network of all 1,339 researchers in German political science. Through the use of consensus graph clustering techniques and descriptive centrality measures, we identify the ten largest research clusters, their research topics, and the most central researchers who act as bridges and connect these clusters. We also aggregate the findings at the level of research organizations and consider the inter-university co-authorship network. The findings indicate that German political science is structured by multiple overlapping research clusters with a dominance of the subfields of international relations, comparative politics and political sociology. A small set of well-connected universities takes leading roles in these informal research groups.

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Leifeld, Professor Philip
Authors: Leifeld, P., Wankmüller, S., Berger, V. T.Z., Ingold, K., and Steiner, C.
College/School:College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences
Journal Name:PLoS ONE
Publisher:Public Library of Science
ISSN:1932-6203
ISSN (Online):1932-6203
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2017 Leifeld et al.
First Published:First published in PLoS ONE 12(4):e0174671
Publisher Policy:Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

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