Social sciences research in the Central European city of Wrocław: A density-equalizing mapping analysis

Abstract

Background: The city of Wrocław in Poland represents one of Central Europeans oldest capitals of science with numerous Nobel laureates. Due to a long history of political suppressions with Nazi Germany and Communism from 1933 until 1989, its scientific community was suppressed for more than half a century.

Methods: The present study assessed scientific activities in the field of social and neighbouring sciences using density equalizing mapping. On the basis of the NewQIS (New Quality and Quantity Indices in Science) platform and the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) of the Web of Science database, a total of 1787 articles originating from Wrocław were identified between 1966 and 2017.

Results: In total, 549 research collaborations of Wrocław with 96 different countries were present (30.7%). Among the 107 research areas the highest activity was found for the field of Business and Economics with n = 272 articles (average citation rate (AVR) of 12.54), followed by Psychology (n = 252 articles, AVR = 9.06), Psychiatry (n = 205 articles, AVR = 4.74) and Public, Environmental and Occupational Health (n = 145 articles, AVR = 7.96). The highest AVR was found for Operations Research (25.36 with n = 87 articles). Density equalizing mapping procedures revealed a global pattern of social sciences research collaborations with scientists from Germany, the UK and the US as the primary cooperating partner of Wrocław. The different countries had major differences in the area of research collaborations.

Conclusions: This is the first study that depicts the global network of Wrocław scientific activities in the field of social sciences. The exorbitant increase in research activity from 2006 onwards can lead to the assumption that Wrocław social sciences encounter a fruitful future.

Fig 1. Number of publications worldwide.

(A) Density equalizing map of the number of publications per country. B) Number of publications per year, r² = correlation coefficient.

Fig 2. Number of publications of the collaborating countries.

(A) Density equalizing map of the number of publications per country. (B) Number of collaborating partner countries per article and amount of articles.

Fig 3. International network.

Network diagram of the international collaboration partners, numbers in brackets (publications/collaboration articles).

Fig 4

Density equalizing mapping (A) Modified h-indices of Wrocław and all other collaborating countries. (B) Number of collaborating institutions of Wrocław social sciences research in Poland and all collaborating countries.

Fig 5. Subject areas with social sciences and related fields research.

(A) Proportion of subjected areas in 5-year time intervals. (B) Proportion of subjected areas in the collaboration with other countries.