Quantitative View of the Structure of Institutional Scientific Collaborations Using the Examples of Halle, Jena and Leipzig

TL;DR

This study analyzes the structure of scientific collaborations in three German cities over more than two decades, revealing insights into how institutional coalitions influence scientific output and collaboration networks.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative analysis of collaboration networks and assesses the impact of regional coalitions and a new interdisciplinary center on scientific collaboration.

Findings

Cohesive collaboration networks exist but are underutilized.

The new center has improved regional collaboration but not significantly.

Geographical and organizational factors alone do not guarantee successful collaborations.

Abstract

Examining effectiveness of institutional scientific coalitions can inform future policies. This is a study on the structure of scientific collaborations in three cities in central Germany. Since 1995, the three universities of this region have formed and maintained a coalition which led to the establishment of an interdisciplinary center in 2012, i.e., German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv). We investigate whether the impact of the former coalition is evident in the region's structure of scientific collaborations and the scientific output of the new center. Using publications data from 1996-2018, we build co-authorship networks and identify the most cohesive communities in terms of collaboration, and compare them with communities identified based on publications presented as the scientific outcome of the coalition and new center on their website. Our results show that despite the highly cohesive structure of collaborations presented on the coalition website, there is still much potential to be realized. The newly established center has bridged the member institutions but not to a particularly strong level. We see that geographical proximity, collaboration policies, funding, and organizational structure alone do not ensure prosperous scientific collaboration structures. When new center's scientific output is compared with its regional context, observed trends become less conspicuous. Nevertheless, the level of success the coalition achieved could inform policy makers regarding other regions' scientific development plans.