Collaborative patterns, authorship practices and scientific success in biomedical research: a network analysis

Objective: To investigate the relationship between biomedical researchers' collaborative and authorship practices and scientific success.

Design: Longitudinal quantitative analysis of individual researchers' careers over a nine-year period.

Setting: A leading biomedical research institution in the United Kingdom.

Participants: Five hundred and twenty-five biomedical researchers who were in employment on 31 December 2009.

Main outcome measures: We constructed the co-authorship network in which nodes are the researchers, and links are established between any two researchers if they co-authored one or more articles. For each researcher, we recorded the position held in the co-authorship network and in the bylines of all articles published in each three-year interval and calculated the number of citations these articles accrued until January 2013. We estimated maximum likelihood negative binomial panel regression models.

Results: Our analysis suggests that collaboration sustained success, yet excessive co-authorship did not. Last positions in non-alphabetised bylines were beneficial for higher academic ranks but not for junior ones. A professor could witness a 20.57% increase in the expected citation count if last-listed non-alphabetically in one additional publication; yet, a lecturer suffered from a 13.04% reduction. First positions in alphabetised bylines were positively associated with performance for junior academics only. A lecturer could experience a 8.78% increase in the expected citation count if first-listed alphabetically in one additional publication. While junior researchers amplified success when brokering among otherwise disconnected collaborators, senior researchers prospered from socially cohesive networks, rich in third-party relationships.

Conclusions: These results help biomedical scientists shape successful careers and research institutions develop effective assessment and recruitment policies that will ultimately sustain the quality of biomedical research and patient care.