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

Borut Lužar; Zoran Levnajić; Janez Povh; Matjaž Perc

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0094429

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

PLoS One. 2014 Apr 11;9(4):e94429. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094429. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Borut Lužar¹, Zoran Levnajić¹, Janez Povh¹, Matjaž Perc²

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Information Studies in Novo mesto, Novo mesto, Slovenia.
² Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia.

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.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Algorithms
Authorship
Cooperative Behavior*
Interdisciplinary Communication*
Residence Characteristics*
Science*
Slovenia

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the Slovenian Research Agency ARRS (Grants J1-4055, J1-5454, L7-4119 and Program P1-0383), as well as by The European Regional Development Fund (Creative Core Grant FISNM-3330-13-500033). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.