Understanding persistent scientific collaboration

Abstract

Common sense suggests that persistence is key to success. In academia, successful researchers have been found more likely to be persistent in publishing, but little attention has been given to how persistence in maintaining collaborative relationships affects career success. This paper proposes a new bibliometric understanding of persistence that considers the prominent role of collaboration in contemporary science. Using this perspective, we analyze the relationship between persistent collaboration and publication quality along several dimensions: degree of transdisciplinarity, difference in coauthor's scientific age and their scientific impact, and research-team size. Contrary to traditional wisdom, our results show that persistent scientific collaboration does not always result in high-quality papers. We find that the most persistent transdisciplinary collaboration tends to output highimpact publications, and that those coauthors with diverse scientific impact or scientific ages benefit from persistent collaboration more than homogeneous compositions. We also find that researchers persistently working in large groups tend to publish lower-impact papers. These results contradict the colloquial understanding of collaboration in academia and paint a more nuanced picture of how persistent scientific collaboration relates to success, a picture that can provide valuable insights to researchers, funding agencies, policy makers, and mentor-mentee program directors. Moreover, the methodology in this study showcases a feasible approach to measure persistent collaboration.

Assessment of Researchers Through Bibliometric Indicators: The Area of Information and Library Science in Spain as a Case Study (2001–2015)

“…In a more recent study Levitt and Thelwall (2016) reported that researchers who worked in groups of 2 or 3 were generally the most productive, in terms of producing the most papers and citations. Similarly, Bu et al (2018a) concluded that papers written by large groups of researchers tend to have a lower impact, a result that justifies the interest in measuring these variables as control indicators during individual researcher evaluation processes. Moreover, these findings would help support arguments to limit the number of authors established in the regulatory provisions for accreditation and academic promotion.…”

“…With regard to analyzing collaborative ties with other investigators and the concept of the principal or top collaborator described in this study, Bu et al has introduced the concepts of "persistence in maintaining collaborative relationships" (Bu et al, 2018a) and "stability of scientific collaboration" (Bu et al, 2018b) as measures of the continuity and the absence of fluctuations in the number of collaborations maintained between investigators over time. Remarkably, 54% of the most productive Spanish investigators that we analyzed in the area of Library and Information Science share over half of their bylines with their top collaborator.…”

“…Indeed, Petersen's (2015) analysis-like Abbasi and Altmann (2011) and de Montjoye et al (2014) before itconcluded that extremely strong collaborations have a significant positive impact on productivity and citations. Other authors, including Bu et al (2018a), take the opposite position, arguing that persistent scientific collaboration does not always result in high-quality papers. These apparently contradictory results make it necessary to generate further scientific evidence with regard to this collaboration variable.…”

Analyzing scientific collaboration with “giants” based on the milestones of career

“…Moreover, we will expand our suite of indicators, which while presently useful for creating a rough understanding of a scholar's career achievement, do not capture the nuances of scientific impact. More indicators will also allow us to explore other aspects of collaboration and career stage, such as changes in impact diversity, research topic, collaborator diversity, and the degree of persistence (Bu et al, 2018a) and stability (Bu et al, 2018c) regarding scientific collaborations. This work lays the foundation for future exploration of how collaboration and other aspects of a researcher's career may affect future success, and to identity not only how to shape a successful career, but also when to prioritize different tasks and behaviors.…”

The structure and evolution of scientific collaboration from the perspective of symbiosis

“…This has prompted us to develop a theoretical framework and model to describe and explore the evolving networks. Currently, most research on the subject is focused on the network characteristics of scientific collaboration, and network theory has been used to study the structure and evolution of scientific collaboration (e.g., Bu et al 2018a;Chen 2013;Newman 2001a;Zhang et al 2018). However, network theory can only reveal the external characteristics of scientific collaboration and does not consider the intrinsic motivation for the collaboration itself.…”