The evolution of research network for a university department

Purpose †" Networks of researchers represent a typical and interesting example of affiliation network in which a link between two researchers indicates the existence of their scientific collaboration. The great diffusion of digital libraries that made the wide availability of services has favorite the construction of co-authorship networks that have been considered as the most common and well-documented form of scientific collaboration. In really, the production of a paper it is not always an index of collaboration and this concept represents a first point depth in doctoral thesis. Using, then, for a research group a network representation and replicating it over time, it is possible to understand how the set of scientific collaborations evolve over time and to identify the reasons for which a researcher chooses his collaborations; the application of a dynamic methodology to a case study is the second of the points of deepening. Methods †" A developed case study has allowed the identification of collaborative networks exist within a department over a period of time (11-years). Two different definitions of scientific collaboration are compared: the first linked to the production of paper in common (networks of co-authors), the second takes into account the continuity of that production (collaboration networks), and found that the main differences they determine on the characteristics of the network. Static analysis (SNA) and the dynamic (Actor-oriented model) have been performed.