Research Topic Specialization of Universities in Information Science and Library Science and Its Impact on Inter-University Collaboration

Abstract

Universities significantly empower the development of science and technology, and inter-university research collaborations have been one of the major approaches. Considering each university has its expertise regarding research topics in a given discipline, the present paper examines the specialization of university research and its impact on inter-university collaborations. Based on a keyword network constructed via research articles in Information Science and Library Science, 10 research topics are identified. Accordingly, the research topic diversity of a university and the research topic similarity between two universities are quantified. The universities with diverse research topics are found to be more collaborative. A further collaboration network analysis based on the Quadradic Assignment Procedure reveals the important role of research topic similarity on the closeness and impact of collaborations. The different research topic specializations largely prevent close collaborations between two universities, but on the other hand, have the potential to form a complementary combination of knowledge leading to more impactful research output. The analysis and results highlight the important role of research topic specialization and provide insights for the university- or department-level strategy for research collaborations.

Exploring the Curvilinear Relationship between Academic-Industry Collaboration Environment and Innovation Performance: A Multilevel Perspective

“…For instance, Hong et al [34], using data from Italian researchers in the field of materials science, found a positive correlation between the number of patents granted to researchers and their research output in terms of academic papers. Similarly, Hou et al [35], using data from Japanese researchers, discovered a positive linear relationship between the number of patents and publications in journals with low impact factors. Additionally, Hu et al [36], analyzing patent data in the nanotechnology field from three European countries, found that researchers with patents had more publications and higher citation rates than those without patents.…”