Coauthorship networks and patterns of scientific collaboration

This work uses data from three bibliographic databases in biology, physics, and mathematics to answer a broad variety of questions about collaboration patterns, such as the numbers of papers authors write, how many people they write them with, and what the typical distance between scientists is through the network.

Abstract

By using data from three bibliographic databases in biology, physics, and mathematics, respectively, networks are constructed in which the nodes are scientists, and two scientists are connected if they have coauthored a paper. We use these networks to answer a broad variety of questions about collaboration patterns, such as the numbers of papers authors write, how many people they write them with, what the typical distance between scientists is through the network, and how patterns of collaboration vary between subjects and over time. We also summarize a number of recent results by other authors on coauthorship patterns.