Laboratory

Population Dynamics and Sustainable Well-Being

At a Glance Projects Publications Team

Project

Trends and Disparities in Patterns of Scientific Knowledge Production

Aliakbar Akbaritabar, Diego Alburez-Gutierrez, Andres Castro (MPIDR / Autonomous University of Barcelona, Centre for Demographic Studies, Spain); in Collaboration with Vincent Larivière (University of Montreal, Canada), Cassidy R. Sugimoto (Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA), Flaminio Squazzoni (Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy), Dimity M. Stephen (German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies GmbH, Hannover, Germany), Dehua Gao (Shandong Technology and Business University, Yantai City, China)

Different countries have different levels of production of scientific publications, with additional variations based on disciplines and fields of science. In this project, we use bibliometric data to study global trends and disparities in patterns of scientific knowledge production.  Detailed Description

Naming practices in mentioning the geographic location of focus in the title of scientific publications

While about 60% of articles have a focus on Europe and North America (left) only 40% of articles mention these regions in their title (right). The reverse is the case for other regions of the world. The figure shows the distribution of the region of focus of articles in the analytical sample (Left) and localization rate by region of study (Right), 1996 to 2020 (n = 560,893). Authors from the Global South have a much higher tendency to reveal the geographic focus of their articles. © Based on the paper by Castro Torres, A. F., & Alburez-Gutierrez, D. (2022). North and South: Naming practices and the hidden dimension of global disparities in knowledge production. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(10), e2119373119

The regional concentration of science and scientific collaborations

While institutions in Americas are collaborating mainly with other institutions inside the same region, Europe, Africa, and Oceania are collaborating with each other and show a much higher trend of internationalized collaboration in the area of Higher Education studies. The figure shows the distribution of Higher Education (HE) studies institutions from different continents (left column of both panels) versus their membership in 36 HE studies network. Right column of both panels show the cohesive subgroups (i.e., communities) that we have identified their collaboration network. Co-authoring of publications is converted into a network where authors form one institution collaborate with authors from another institution (the left panel shows size of communities based on number of institutions, the right panel shows the productivity based on number of publications). © Based on the paper by 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.

Publications

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)    

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

The use of linear models in quantitative research

Quantitative Science Studies, 1–32. (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.:

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)    

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

Methodological monotheism across fields of science in contemporary quantitative research

arXiv e-prints 2208.05373. unpublished. (2022)    

Castro Torres, A. F.; Alburez-Gutierrez, D.:

North and South: naming practices and the hidden dimension of global disparities in knowledge production

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 119:10, e2119373119–e2119373119. (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)    

Castro Torres, A. F.; Alburez-Gutierrez, D.:

North and South: naming practices and the hidden dimension of global disparities in knowledge production

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2021-014. (2021)