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Structures of Authors’ Collaboration at Young Universities
There are many studies devoted to university collaboration, but little is known about the existing structure of researchers’ collaboration: which structures foster academic development and which do not. In our study, we analyze the co-authorship networks of eight leading young universities to investigate the collaboration structures of their researchers. We construct the corresponding co-authorship network for each university based on publication data from Scopus for the years 2017–2019. Our analysis includes two-mode university authorship networks, one-mode co-authorship networks, and subnetworks of authors who demonstrate the most productive collaboration. We found that the basic collaboration characteristics of leading young universities are quite similar. These universities exhibit a high level of collaboration, though the patterns of collaboration vary. The subnetwork of authors demonstrating the most productive collaboration reveals different structures based on the number of components and the geographic distribution of the authors. Our results highlight that collaboration is an important resource for leading young universities, but the collaboration structures of their authors differ significantly. Although overall collaboration is high, structural difference impact academic performance. Besides the prevalence of authors with certain types of affiliation, three collaboration models are identified: diverse collaboration, active intra-university collaboration, and active international collaboration. We discuss the risks associated with differing core compositions and propose policy recommendations based on our findings.