Community structure and the evolution of interdisciplinarity in Slovenia's scientific collaboration network

TL;DR

This study analyzes the evolution of interdisciplinary research in Slovenia's scientific collaboration network from 1960 to 2010, revealing stagnation in interdisciplinarity despite overall network growth.

Contribution

It quantifies the interdisciplinarity of research communities over time and highlights the lack of significant progress in fostering interdisciplinary collaboration in Slovenia.

Findings

Interdisciplinary research frequency correlates with network growth.

Marginal increases in interdisciplinarity occurred in the 70s and 80s.

Overall trend shows stagnation in interdisciplinarity over 20 years.

Abstract

Interaction among the scientific disciplines is of vital importance in modern science. Focusing on the case of Slovenia, we study the dynamics of interdisciplinary sciences from 1960 to 2010. Our approach relies on quantifying the interdisciplinarity of research communities detected in the coauthorship network of Slovenian scientists over time. Examining the evolution of the community structure, we find that the frequency of interdisciplinary research is only proportional with the overall growth of the network. Although marginal improvements in favor of interdisciplinarity are inferable during the 70s and 80s, the overall trends during the past 20 years are constant and indicative of stalemate. We conclude that the flow of knowledge between different fields of research in Slovenia is in need of further stimulation.