Research Scientist and Deputy Head - Training

Aliakbar Akbaritabar

akbaritabar.github.io
orcid.org
github.com

Aliakbar Akbaritabar (Ali) is a computational social scientist with a background in sociology. 

He joined MPIDR from the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW) and the German Competence Network for Bibliometrics where he worked as a postdoctoral research scientist.

Ali holds a PhD in economic sociology and labor studies from the University of Milan, and a PhD in sociology (social welfare) from the Allameh Tabataba'i University of Tehran. His work focuses on themes related (but not limited) to science of science, scholarly migration, social networks, collaboration networks, and computational social science. He looks forward to collaborate on research ideas close to these themes, using computational tools and techniques to answer social scientific questions. He is https://bsky.app/profile/akbaritabar.bsky.social on BlueSky and @akbaritabar on Twitter.

Here you could read more on how we re-purpose bibliometric data to answer social science and demographic questions.

MPIDR Publications

Recent All

Akbaritabar, A.; Carrasco Armijo, J. I.; Anastasiadou, A.:

Gender dynamics in international migration and social networks

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2025-004. (2025)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Dańko, M. J.; Zhao, X.; Zagheni, E.:

Global subnational estimates of migration of scientists reveal large disparities in internal and international flows

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 122:15, e2424521122–e2424521122. (2025)    

Ghorbanpour, F.; Zordan Malaguth, T.; Akbaritabar, A.:

Differentiating emigration from return migration of scholars using name-based nationality detection models

In: Proceedings of the Nineteenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM): Copenhagen, Denmark, June 23–26, 2025, 636–652. Washington, DC: AAAI Press. (2025)    

Akbaritabar, A.:

Thinking spatially in computational social science: commentary on Yong-Yeol Ahn (2021): “Representation learning for computational imagination”

EPJ Data Science 13:14, 1–12. (2024)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Castro Torres, A. F.; Larivière, V.:

A global perspective on social stratification in science

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11:914, 1–10. (2024)    

Recent All

Akbaritabar, A.; Carrasco Armijo, J. I.; Anastasiadou, A.:

Gender dynamics in international migration and social networks

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2025-004. (2025)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Dańko, M. J.; Zhao, X.; Zagheni, E.:

Global subnational estimates of migration of scientists reveal large disparities in internal and international flows

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 122:15, e2424521122–e2424521122. (2025)    

Ghorbanpour, F.; Zordan Malaguth, T.; Akbaritabar, A.:

Differentiating emigration from return migration of scholars using name-based nationality detection models

In: Proceedings of the Nineteenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM): Copenhagen, Denmark, June 23–26, 2025, 636–652. Washington, DC: AAAI Press. (2025)    

Akbaritabar, A.:

Thinking spatially in computational social science: commentary on Yong-Yeol Ahn (2021): “Representation learning for computational imagination”

EPJ Data Science 13:14, 1–12. (2024)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Castro Torres, A. F.; Larivière, V.:

A global perspective on social stratification in science

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11:914, 1–10. (2024)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Haunschild, R.; Bornmann, L.:

Higher mobility among researchers identified as potentially talented academics compared to a control group

In: Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (STI2024), Berlin, Germany, 18-20 September 2024, 1–10. Zenodo. (2024)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Rubin, B. P.:

The evolution of plasticity in the neuroscientific literature during the second half of the twentieth century to the presence

Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 1–22. (2024)

Akbaritabar, A.; Theile, T.; Zagheni, E.:

Bilateral flows and rates of international migration of scholars for 210 countries for the period 1998-2020

Scientific Data 11:816, 1–14. (2024)    

Castro Torres, A. F.; Akbaritabar, A.:

The use of linear models in quantitative research

Quantitative Science Studies, 1–32. (2024)    

Walk, E.; Akbaritabar, A.:

Resolving the paradox between migration and collaboration of scholars worldwide

SocArXiv papers. unpublished. (2024)    

Abdi Nur, A.; Akbaritabar, A.; Vignau Loria, M.; Coolman, N.; Fan, X.; Curran, S.:

Bibliometric analysis of published literature on the determinants of family planning

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2023-027. (2023)    

Akbaritabar, A.:

Dichotomy of offline versus online social capital

SSRN research paper series 4311832. unpublished. (2023)    

Akbaritabar, A.:

Scientific collaboration networks in the interdisciplinary field of biodiversity in central Germany

In: 19th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics, ISSI 2023: 2-5 July 2023, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA; proceedings: volume 1, 19–41. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University. (2023)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Castro Torres, A. F.; Larivière, V.:

A global perspective on the social structure of science

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2023-029. (2023)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Dańko, M. J.; Zhao, X.; Zagheni, E.:

Sub-national disparities in the global mobility of academic talent

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2023-038. (2023)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Theile, T.; Zagheni, E.:

Global flows and rates of international migration of scholars

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2023-018. (2023)    

Kashyap, R.; Rinderknecht, R. G.; Akbaritabar, A.; Alburez-Gutierrez, D.; Gil-Clavel, B. S.; Grow, A.; Kim, J.; Leasure, D. R.; Lohmann, S.; Negraia, D. V.; Perrotta, D.; Rampazzo, F.; Tsai, C.-J.; Verhagen, M. D.; Zagheni, E.; Zhao, X.:

Digital and computational demography

In: Research handbook on digital sociology, 48–86. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. (2023)

Şanlitürk, A. E.; Zagheni, E.; Dańko, M. J.; Theile, T.; Akbaritabar, A.:

Global patterns of migration of scholars with economic development

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 120:4, e2217937120–e2217937120. (2023)    

Zhao, X.; Akbaritabar, A.; Kashyap, R.; Zagheni, E.:

A gender perspective on the global migration of scholars

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 120:10, e2214664120–e2214664120. (2023)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Stephen, D.; Squazzoni, F.:

A study of referencing changes in preprint-publication pairs across multiple fields

Journal of Informetrics 16:2, 101258–101258. (2022)

Castro Torres, A. F.; Akbaritabar, A.:

Methodological monotheism across fields of science in contemporary quantitative research

arXiv e-prints 2208.05373. unpublished. (2022)    

Gao, D.; Akbaritabar, A.:

Using agent-based modeling in routine dynamics research: a quantitative and content analysis of literature

Review of Managerial Science 16:2, 521–550. (2022)

Piolatto, M.; Bianchi, F.; Rota, M.; Marengoni, A.; Akbaritabar, A.; Squazzoni, F.:

The effect of social relationships on cognitive decline in older adults: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal cohort studies

BMC Public Health 22:278, 1–14. (2022)    

Akbaritabar, A.:

A quantitative view of the structure of institutional scientific collaborations using the example of Berlin

Quantitative Science Studies 2:2, 753–777. (2021)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Barbato, G.:

An internationalised Europe and regionally focused Americas: a network analysis of higher education studies

European Journal of Education 56:2, 219–234. (2021)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Bravo, G.; Squazzoni, F.:

The impact of a national research assessment on the publications of sociologists in Italy

Science and Public Policy 48:5, 662–678. (2021)    

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