The relationship between the research performance of scientists and their position in co-authorship networks in three fields

Research networks play a crucial role in the production of new knowledge since collabo-ration contributes to determine the cognitive and social structure of scientific fields andhas a positive influence on research. This paper analyses the structure of co-authorshipnetworks in three different fields (Nanoscience, Pharmacology and Statistics) in Spain overa three-year period (2006–2008) and explores the relationship between the research per-formance of scientists and their position in co-authorship networks. A denser co-authorshipnetwork is found in the two experimental fields than in Statistics, where the network is ofa less connected and more fragmented nature. Using the g-index as a proxy for individualresearch performance, a Poisson regression model is used to explore how performance isrelated to different co-authorship network measures and to disclose interfield differences.The number of co-authors (degree centrality) and the strength of links show a positive rela-tionship with the g-index in the three fields. Local cohesion presents a negative relationshipwith the g-index in the two experimental fields, where open networks and the diversity ofco-authors seem to be beneficial. No clear advantages from intermediary positions (highbetweenness) or from being linked to well-connected authors (high eigenvector) can beinferred from this analysis. In terms of g-index, the benefits derived by authors from theirposition in co-authorship networks are larger in the two experimental fields than in thetheoretical one.AcknowledgementsThis research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) (research project CSO2008-06310) and the Spanish National Research Council (JAE predoctoral grant and project 201110E087).Peer reviewe

From academic to media capital: To what extent does the scientific reputation of universities translate into Wikipedia attention?

Universities face increasing demands to improve their visibility, public outreach, and online presence. There is a broad consensus that scientific reputation significantly increases the attention universities receive. However, in most cases estimates of scientific reputation are based on composite or weighted indicators and absolute positions in university rankings. In this study, we adopt a more granular approach to assessment of universities' scientific performance using a multidimensional set of indicators from the Leiden Ranking and testing their individual effects on university Wikipedia page views. We distinguish between international and local attention and find a positive association between research performance and Wikipedia attention which holds for regions and linguistic areas. Additional analysis shows that productivity, scientific impact, and international collaboration have a curvilinear effect on universities' Wikipedia attention. This finding suggests that there may be other factors than scientific reputation driving the general public's interest in universities. Our study adds to a growing stream of work which views altmetrics as tools to deepen science-society interactions rather than direct measures of impact and recognition of scientific outputs

Comunicación científica y política pública: oportunidades y desafíos para mejorar la interacción entre ciencia y sociedad

Ciencia para las Políticas Públicas - Science 4 Policy.-- Coordinado por: Vincenzo Pavone, Jordi Molas, Jordi Brandts, Rafael Serrano.La investigación científica es, hoy más que nunca, una labor colaborativa que ha de desempeñar un rol decisivo ante los grandes retos globales en torno al medioambiente, la sanidad, la justicia social, la democracia o la educación. Desde la política pública hay una demanda creciente para impulsar la interacción entre ciencia y sociedad, con la idea subyacente de que los resultados de la investigación han de estar más claramente alineados con las necesidades de la ciudadanía y producir un mayor impacto social. Como respuesta parcial a esta demanda, la ciencia está dejando de ser concebida como dominio exclusivo de científicos y expertos altamente cualificados para reconocer que la ciudadanía no es mera receptora o usuaria del conocimiento, sino que también participa en su producción y difusión. Uno de los ámbitos en los que la interacción entre ciencia y sociedad presenta grandes oportunidades y desafíos para la política pública es el de la comunicación científica

Redes de colaboración y generación de conocimiento en biomedicina: Resultados preliminares de la encuesta a investigadores CIBER

Este informe forma parte de un proyecto de investigación dedicado al análisis de las redes de colaboración en la generación de conocimiento científico y tecnológico. El estudio se enmarca en el contexto de la investigación biomédica, tomando los investigadores/as CIBER como unidad de análisis. Está elaborada por los investigadores Adrián Arias Díaz-Faes y Pablo D’Este de INGENIO, centro mixto del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) y de la Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). El informe proporciona información acerca de las redes de colaboración científica de los investigadores y de su participación en actividades de transferencia de conocimiento, entre otros aspectos, con objeto de comprender los factores que influyen en la investigación biomédica traslacional.Esta encuesta forma parte de un proyecto de investigación del Plan Nacional (RTI2018-101232-B-100), financiado por el Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad y a través de una ayuda a “Primeros Proyectos de Investigación (PAID-06-18, Ref. SP20180098), Vicerrectorado de Investigación, Innovación y Transferencia de la Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV)”.N

Do networking centres perform better? An exploratory analysis in Psychiatry and Gastroenterology/Hepatology in Spain

Science has become progressively more complex, requiring greater integration and collaboration between individuals, institutions and areas. Networking research establishes common rules and offers a suitable framework for this cooperation. Therefore, it is a good choice for both scientists and policy-makers. The objective of this study is to know whether the scientists perform better within these structures than outside them. As an example, we analysed the Biomedical Research Networking Centres in Spain and, for the exploratory investigation, we selected two disciplines (Psychiatry and Gastroenterology/Hepatology). The results showed that in every situation of networking research there were higher collaboration and impact rates. Furthermore, the main differences found between disciplines were related to the scope of cooperation, carried out at a more local level in Gastroenterology/Hepatology. Besides, HJ-Biplot technique allowed us to conclude that the outcomes may vary somewhat depending on the types of centres where the scientists work. Although further investigation is needed, the findings of this study might anticipate possible scenarios in which networking research could be the most natural way of collaboration.This work is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Grant CSO2011-25102)Peer reviewe

Unravelling the performance of individual scholars: use of Canonical Biplot analysis to explore the performance of scientists by academic rank and scientific field

Individual research performance needs to be addressed by means of a diverse set of indicators capturing the multidimensional framework of science. In this context, Biplot methods emerge as powerful and reliable visualization tools similar to a scatterplot but capturing the multivariate covariance structures among bibliometric indicators. In this paper, we introduce the Canonical Biplot technique to explore differences in the scientific performance of Spanish CSIC researchers, organised by field (Chemistry and Materials Science) and grouped by academic rank (research fellows and three types of full-time permanent scientists). This method enables us to build a Biplot where the groups of individuals are sorted out by the maximum discriminating power between the different indicators considered. Besides, as confidence intervals are displayed in the plot, statistical differences between groups are liable to be studied simultaneously. Since test hypotheses are sensitive to different sample size effects, sizes for some pairwise comparisons are computed. We have found two gradients: a primary gradient where scientists mainly differ in terms of age, production, number of collaborators, number of highly-cited papers and their position in the byline of the publications; and a second gradient, in which scientists with the same academic rank differ by sort of field.This research was supported by the Spanish National Research Council (JAE pre-doctoral grant). This paper was conceived while Adrián A. Díaz-Faes carried out a research stay at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden University (The Netherlands).Peer reviewe

Relationship between research funding and scientific output in two different biomedical disciplines

Trabajo presentado a la Science, Technology and Innovation indicators (STI) Conference, celebrada en Paris (Francia) del 6 al 8 de septiembre de 2017.When studying scientific output arising from funded research, it is relevant to determine the effectiveness of investments on research. In this study two biomedical disciplines are analysed regarding scientific publications and their research funding profile as obtained from the WoS funding acknowledgements field. The main characteristics of funded-research are analyzed from a bibliometric perspective. Disciplines differ in their funding rate, percentage distribution of funding sources by institutional sector and type of financing. In both disciplines, funded research is more likely to be published in high impact factor journals and to receive more citations than non-funded research, as well as to present international collaboration. The institutional affiliation of authors has an influence on the likelihood of reporting financing, which is positive for university and multi-sector centres but negative for companies in the more basic discipline. The interest of these findings for sponsor organisations will be outlined.This research was supported by MINECO (grants CSO2014-57826P and FPI BES-2015-073537).Peer Reviewe

Research integrity at stake: conflicts of interest and industry ties in scientific publications

Trabajo presentado en la 26th International Conference on Science and Technology Indicators, celebrada en Granada (España) del 07 al 09 de septiembre de 2022.Large-scale and systematic analysis of CoI remained largely untapped due to major scientific databases' lack of indexing (Giles & Council, 2004). The situation changed in 2008 when the Web of Science (WoS) started to collect information on the funding acknowledgements of scientific publications. This has led to a renewed interest in analysing acknowledgements as paratextual traces of research practices (Desrochers et al., 2016). Nevertheless, most studies on the topic have been confined to the analysis of trends and patterns related to funding sources (for a review, see Álvarez-Bornstein and Montesi, 2021) or have dealt with acknowledgements as sources that provide new insights on influential contributions to scientific work (Cronin, Shaw & La Barre, 2003; Giles & Council, 2004; Díaz-Faes & Bordons, 2014). However, few studies have provided fine-grained analyses of CoI statements. A worth mentioning exception is Lewison & Sullivan (2015), who studied the presence of CoI financial statements on a sample of nearly 200,000 papers but focused only on the top 10 pharmaceutical companies in terms of R&D expenditures at that time. In this study, however, we conduct a large-scale analysis of CoI statements related to public-private partnerships, based on scientific outputs published between 2010 and 2020, to address the questions as follows: 1) What percentage of publications include CoI linked to the industry? 2) What is the distribution of publications disclosing CoI across research domains? 3) What industry ties are more frequently mentioned as representing potential CoI