The emergent integrated network structure of scientific research

Scientific research is often thought of as being conducted by individuals and small teams striving for disciplinary advances. Yet as a whole, this endeavor more closely resembles a complex and integrated system of people, papers, and ideas. Studies of co-authorship and citation networks have revealed important structural properties of researchers and articles, but currently the structure of scientific ideas themselves is not well understood. In this study, we posit that topic networks may be a useful framework for revealing the nature of conceptual relationships. Using this framework, we map the landscape of interconnected research topics covered in the multidisciplinary journal PNAS since 2000, constructing networks in which nodes represent topics of study and edges give the extent to which topics occur in the same papers. The network displays small-world architecture, characterized by regions of dense local connectivity with sparse connectivity between them. In this network, dense local connectivity additionally gives rise to distinct clusters of related topics. Yet notably, these clusters tend not to align with assigned article classifications, and instead contain topics from various disciplines. Using a temporal graph, we find that small-worldness has increased over time, suggesting growing efficiency and integration of ideas. Finally, we define two measures of interdisciplinarity, one of which is found to be positively associated with PNAS's impact factor. Broadly, this work suggests that complex and dynamic patterns of knowledge emerge from scientific research, and that structures reflecting intellectual integration may be beneficial for obtaining scientific insight.

Tags
Data and Resources
To access the resources you must log in

This item has no data

Identity

Description: The Identity category includes attributes that support the identification of the resource.

Field Value
PID https://www.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216146
PID pmc:PMC6490937
PID pmid:31039179
PID arXiv:1804.06434
URL https://export.arxiv.org/pdf/1804.06434
URL http://arxiv.org/abs/1804.06434
URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.06434
URL https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216146
URL https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0216146
URL https://academic.microsoft.com/#/detail/2796801442
URL https://dblp.uni-trier.de/db/journals/corr/corr1804.html#abs-1804-06434
URL https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.06434.pdf
URL https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019PLoSO..1416146D/abstract
URL http://www.arxiv-vanity.com/papers/1804.06434/
URL http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216146
URL https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31039179
URL http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC6490937
URL https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31039179/
URL https://uk.arxiv.org/pdf/1804.06434
URL http://export.arxiv.org/abs/1804.06434
URL https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216146
URL https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203
URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216146
URL https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0216146&type=printable
Access Modality

Description: The Access Modality category includes attributes that report the modality of exploitation of the resource.

Field Value
Access Right Open Access
Attribution

Description: Authorships and contributors

Field Value
Author Jordan D. Dworkin, 0000-0002-5720-1298
Author Russell T. Shinohara
Author Danielle S. Bassett
Contributor Masuda, Naoki
Publishing

Description: Attributes about the publishing venue (e.g. journal) and deposit location (e.g. repository)

Field Value
Collected From PubMed Central; ORCID; Datacite; UnpayWall; arXiv.org e-Print Archive; DOAJ-Articles; Crossref; Microsoft Academic Graph
Hosted By Europe PubMed Central; PLoS ONE; arXiv.org e-Print Archive
Journal PLoS ONE, 14, 4
Publication Date 2019-04-30
Publisher Public Library of Science
Additional Info
Field Value
Language English
Resource Type Other literature type; Article; Preprint
keyword Q
keyword R
keyword keywords.General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
system:type publication
Management Info
Field Value
Source https://science-innovation-policy.openaire.eu/search/publication?articleId=dedup_wf_001::ed93053c1a07c6f73e929a778658aa11
Author jsonws_user
Last Updated 26 December 2020, 23:42 (CET)
Created 26 December 2020, 23:42 (CET)