The structure of scientific collaboration networks.
The structure of scientific collaboration networks is investigated. Two scientists are considered connected if they have authored a paper together and explicit networks of such connections are constructed by using data drawn from a number of databases, including MEDLINE (biomedical research), the Los Alamos e-Print Archive (physics), and NCSTRL (computer science). I show that these collaboration networks form "small worlds," in which randomly chosen pairs of scientists are typically separated by only a short path of intermediate acquaintances. I further give results for mean and distribution of numbers of collaborators of authors, demonstrate the presence of clustering in the networks, and highlight a number of apparent differences in the patterns of collaboration between the fields studied.
Newman
M E
ME
Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA. mark@santafe.edu
D001319:Authorship; D015706:Bibliometrics; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D016206:Databases, Bibliographic; D006801:Humans; D016239:MEDLINE; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012106:Research / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012108:Research Personnel; D012586:Science