Revealing dynamic co-authorship structure in the social sciences through blockmodeling: the Slovenian case (1991–2020)

Abstract

Scientific cooperation is gaining importance as worldwide trends in co-authorship indicate. While clustering is an established method in this field and several have studied scientific-cooperation dynamics within a single discipline, little literature exists on its interdisciplinary facet. This paper analyses the evolution of co-authorship amongst social scientists in Slovenia over the three decades between 1991 and 2020 using bibliographic databases. The identification of groups (clusters) of authors based on patterns in their co-authorship ties both within and across decades is carried out using network-analytical method called stochastic blockmodeling (SBM). Meanwhile, previous research used generalised blockmodeling accounting only for within-period ties. Additionally, a topic model is developed to tentatively assess whether co-authorship is driven by research interests, organisational or disciplinary affiliation. Notably, while focusing on the result of the SBM for generalised multipartite networks, the paper draw compares with other SBMs. Generally, the paper identifies clusters of authors that are larger and less cohesive than those found in previous works. Specifically, there are three main findings. First, disciplines appear to become less important over time. Second, institutions remain central, corroborating the suggestion that Slovenian R&D policy reinforces parochial research practices. Yet, whether organisational segregation is an issue remains unclear. Third, interdisciplinarity’s emergence has been slow and partial, thus supporting the idea of a ‘covert interdisciplinarity.’ Importantly, it seems that members of different clusters lack fluency in a meta-language enabling effective communication across cognate paradigms. And this may hinder the implementation of long-term, up-to-date research policies in the country.