Using egocentric analysis to investigate professional networks and productivity of graduate students and faculty in life sciences in Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan

PLoS One. 2017 Oct 18;12(10):e0186608. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0186608. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Prior studies showed that scientists' professional networks contribute to research productivity, but little work has examined what factors predict the formation of professional networks. This study sought to 1) examine what factors predict the formation of international ties between faculty and graduate students and 2) identify how these international ties would affect publication productivity in three East Asian countries. Face-to-face surveys and in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of faculty and doctoral students in life sciences at 10 research institutions in Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan. Our final sample consisted of 290 respondents (84 faculty and 206 doctoral students) and 1,435 network members. We used egocentric social network analysis to examine the structure of international ties and how they relate to research productivity. Our findings suggest that overseas graduate training can be a key factor in graduate students' development of international ties in these countries. Those with a higher proportion of international ties in their professional networks were likely to have published more papers and written more manuscripts. For faculty, international ties did not affect the number of manuscripts written or of papers published, but did correlate with an increase in publishing in top journals. The networks we examined were identified by asking study participants with whom they discuss their research. Because the relationships may not appear in explicit co-authorship networks, these networks were not officially recorded elsewhere. This study sheds light on the relationships of these invisible support networks to researcher productivity.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Biological Science Disciplines / statistics & numerical data*
  • Efficiency*
  • Faculty / statistics & numerical data*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Internationality
  • Japan
  • Logistic Models
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Multilevel Analysis
  • Research Personnel / statistics & numerical data*
  • Singapore
  • Social Support*
  • Students / statistics & numerical data*
  • Taiwan
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

Funding provided by the National Science Foundation nos. 08-30109 and 08-30137. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.