Community Structure and the Evolution of Interdisciplinarity in Slovenia's Scientific Collaboration Network

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2014 Apr 15

PMID 24728345

Citations 13

Authors

Borut Luzar

Zoran Levnajic

Janez Povh

Matjaz Perc

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

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.

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