Quantifying the evolution of a scientific topic: reaction of the academic community to the Chornobyl disaster

TL;DR

This study examines how the global and Ukrainian scientific communities responded to the 1986 Chornobyl disaster by analyzing publication data, co-authorship networks, and content to understand interdisciplinary and international research dynamics.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive bibliometric and network analysis of scientific publications on Chornobyl, highlighting international collaboration and research trends over time.

Findings

Increased publication activity following the disaster

Significant international collaboration in research

Identification of key research topics and terms

Abstract

We analyze the reaction of academic communities to a particular urgent topic which abruptly arises as a scientific problem. To this end, we have chosen the disaster that occurred in 1986 in Chornobyl (Chernobyl), Ukraine, considered as one of the most devastating nuclear power plant accidents in history. The academic response is evaluated using scientific-publication data concerning the disaster using the Scopus database to present the picture on an international scale and the bibliographic database "Ukrainika naukova" to consider it on a national level. We measured distributions of papers in different scientific fields, their growth rates and properties of co-authorship networks. {The elements of descriptive statistics and the tools of the complex network theory are used to highlight the interdisciplinary as well as international effects.} Our analysis allows to compare contributions of the international community to Chornobyl-related research as well as integration of Ukraine in the international research on this subject. Furthermore, the content analysis of titles and abstracts of the publications allowed to detect the most important terms used for description of Chornobyl-related problems.