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 advancement of scientific knowledge. Conferences represent one of the most suitable occasions to further scientific interactions, stimulated through the contributions presented either by a single researcher or by a group of authors. Using the books of abstracts from four recent Italian conferences on population studies (Giornate di Studio sulla Popolazione, GSP, 1999, 2001, 2003, and 2005), this research provides an empirical analysis of the collaboration patterns observed among the authors of the papers presented. We followed a social network perspective, in order to find out the determinants of scientific cooperation in the field of Italian demographic studies. The factors playing a major role in determining the actors’ relationships seem to be related to gender and to the proximity of universities or conference seats. Although a high number of participants are represented by isolated nodes, the most common way of collaborating is a dyadic relationship. The larger collaborations are due mostly to the presence of a small number of leading authors that manage a large number of papers. Productivity and the popularity of leading authors are attributed to their senior positions in research groups or their technical and statistical skills. It is difficult to measure such aspects with an analysis approach that is different from network analysis.