Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Beyond the basemap of science: mapping multiple structures in research portfolios: evidence from Hungary

  • Published:
Scientometrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

As a novel tool for evaluating research competences of R&D actors, science overlay maps have recently been introduced in the scientometric literature, with associated measures for assessing the degree of diversification in research profiles. In this study, we continue the elaboration of this approach: based on science overlay maps (called here m-maps), a new type of map is introduced to reveal the competence structure of R&D institutions (i-maps). It is argued, that while m-maps represent the multidisciplinarity of research profiles, i-maps convey the extent of interdisciplinarity realized in them. Upon i-maps, a set of new measures are also proposed to quantify this feature. With these measures in hand, and also as a follow-up to our previous work, we apply these measures to a sample of Hungarian Research Institutions (HROs). Based on the obtained rankings, a principal component analysis is conducted to reveal main structural dimensions of researh portfolios (of HROs) covered by these measures. The position of HROs along these dimensions then allows us to draw a typology of organizations, according to various combinations of inter- and multidisciplinarity characteristic of their performance.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. We thank one of the referees for pointing out this issue.

References

  • Boyack, K. W. (2009). Using detailed maps of science to identify potential collaborations. Scientometrics, 79(1), 27–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leydesdorff, L. (2007). Betweenness centrality as an indicator of the interdisciplinarity of scientific journals. Journal of the American Soceity for Information Science and Technology, 58(9), 1303–1319.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leydesdorff, L., & Rafols, I. (2009). A global map of science based on the ISI subject categories. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60(2), 348–362.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leydesdorff, L., & Rafols, I. (2011). Indicators of interdisciplinarity of journals: Diversity, centrality, and citations. Journal of Informetrics, 5(1), 87–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Porter, A., Cohen, A., Roessner, D., & Perreault, M. (2007). Measuring researcher interdisciplinarity. Scientometrics, 72(1), 117–147.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rafols, I., Leydesdorff, L., O’Hare, A., Nightingale, P., & Stirling, A. (2011). How journal rankings can suppress interdisciplinarity. The case of innovation studies in business and management. Arxiv preprint. arXiv:1105.1227.

  • Rafols, I., & Meyer, M. (2010). Diversity and network coherence as indicators of interdisciplinarity: Case studies in bionanoscience. Scientometrics, 82(2), 263–287.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rafols, I., Porter, A., & Leydesdorff, L. (2010). Science overlay maps: A new tool for research policy and library management. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 61(9), 1871–1887.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Soós, S., & Kampis, G. (2011). Towards a typology of research performance diversity: The case of top Hungarian players. Scientometrics, 87(2), 357–371.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stirling, A. (2007). A general framework for analysing diversity in science, technology and society. Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 40(15), 707.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wagner, C. S., Roessner, J. D., Bobb, K., Klein, J. T., Boyack, K. W., Keyton, J., et al. (2011). Approaches to understanding and measuring interdisciplinary scientific research (IDR): A Review of the Literature. Journal of Informetrics, 5(1), 14–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the financial support from the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) programme within the Seventh Framework Programme for Research of the European Commission, under the FET Open grant number 233847 (Dynanets project, www.dynanets.org), as well as the support of the Hungarian Government (Anyos Jedlik programme) through the TexTrend project (www.textrend.org), contract no. NKFP_07_A2 (2007)/TEXTREND. The supports are gratefully acknowledged.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Science Policy and Scientometrics, Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

    Sándor Soós

  2. History and Philosophy of Science, Lorand Eötvös University, Budapest, Hungary

    George Kampis

Authors
  1. Sándor Soós
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  2. George Kampis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sándor Soós.

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Table 5.

Table 5 Abbreviations for Hungarian Research Institutions (HROs)
Full size table

Appendix 2

See Table 6.

Table 6 Values of measures obtained for the HROs included (the last three variables have been adopted from Soós–Kampis 2011)
Full size table

Appendix 3

See Table 7.

Table 7 Detailed results of the PCA on selected measures
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Soós, S., Kampis, G. Beyond the basemap of science: mapping multiple structures in research portfolios: evidence from Hungary. Scientometrics 93, 869–891 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-0713-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-0713-x

Keywords