Co-authorship in Italian Workshops on Population Studies: an Analysis with a Network Approach

Interactions, exchanges of ideas and cooperation among scholars are important factors for the\r\nadvancement of scientific knowledge. Conferences represent one of the most suitable\r\noccasions to further scientific interactions, stimulated through the contributions presented\r\neither by a single researcher or by a group of authors. Using the books of abstracts from four\r\nrecent Italian conferences on population studies (Giornate di Studio sulla Popolazione, GSP,\r\n1999, 2001, 2003, and 2005), this research provides an empirical analysis of the collaboration\r\npatterns observed among the authors of the papers presented. We followed a social network\r\nperspective, in order to find out the determinants of scientific cooperation in the field of\r\nItalian demographic studies. The factors playing a major role in determining the actors’\r\nrelationships seem to be related to gender and to the proximity of universities or conference\r\nseats. Although a high number of participants are represented by isolated nodes, the most\r\ncommon way of collaborating is a dyadic relationship. The larger collaborations are due\r\nmostly to the presence of a small number of leading authors that manage a large number of\r\npapers. Productivity and the popularity of leading authors are attributed to their senior\r\npositions in research groups or their technical and statistical skills. It is difficult to measure\r\nsuch aspects with an analysis approach that is different from network analysis.