Collaborative patterns, authorship practices and scientific success in biomedical research: a network analysis

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the relationship between biomedical researchers' collaborative and authorship practices and scientific success.

Design: Longitudinal quantitative analysis of individual researchers' careers over a nine-year period.

Setting: A leading biomedical research institution in the United Kingdom.

Participants: Five hundred and twenty-five biomedical researchers who were in employment on 31 December 2009.

Main outcome measures: We constructed the co-authorship network in which nodes are the researchers, and links are established between any two researchers if they co-authored one or more articles. For each researcher, we recorded the position held in the co-authorship network and in the bylines of all articles published in each three-year interval and calculated the number of citations these articles accrued until January 2013. We estimated maximum likelihood negative binomial panel regression models.

Results: Our analysis suggests that collaboration sustained success, yet excessive co-authorship did not. Last positions in non-alphabetised bylines were beneficial for higher academic ranks but not for junior ones. A professor could witness a 20.57% increase in the expected citation count if last-listed non-alphabetically in one additional publication; yet, a lecturer suffered from a 13.04% reduction. First positions in alphabetised bylines were positively associated with performance for junior academics only. A lecturer could experience a 8.78% increase in the expected citation count if first-listed alphabetically in one additional publication. While junior researchers amplified success when brokering among otherwise disconnected collaborators, senior researchers prospered from socially cohesive networks, rich in third-party relationships.

Conclusions: These results help biomedical scientists shape successful careers and research institutions develop effective assessment and recruitment policies that will ultimately sustain the quality of biomedical research and patient care.

Keywords: Medical careers; medical education; medical management.

Figure 1.

Association between the centred median number of co-authors per publication and the expected citation count of a professor at the Institute of Clinical Sciences, when all other independent variables are held constant at their means. Results are based on estimated coefficients from Model 4. To avoid problems of multi-collinearity, the covariate (median number of co-authors) was centred on its mean (i.e. we subtracted the mean from the variable).

Figure 2.

Association between combinations of brokerage and last position in non-alphabetised bylines and the expected citation count of a female professor at the Institute of Clinical Sciences, when all other independent variables are held constant at their means. Results are based on estimated coefficients from Model 4. To avoid problems of multi-collinearity, both covariates were centred on their respective means.