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Collaboration network and pattern analysis: case study of dye-sensitized solar cells

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Abstract

Nowadays, the development of emerging technology has become a double-edged sword in the scientific world. It can not only bring lots of innovation to society, but may also cause some terrible consequences due to its unknown factors. International collaboration may be able to reduce risks, which means a lot to the exploration of the emerging technology. Taking dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) as an example, this paper examines the rapid growth of Chinese DSSCs research and the rise of collaboration between China and other countries/region. We use bibliometric and social network analysis methods to explore the patterns of scientific collaboration at country, institution and individual levels using data from the Science Citation Index. Examining overall trends shows that China has increased her position in DSSCs around the world. Furthermore, by focusing on the individual level, we find that the most influential authors tend to have fixed co-author networks and author name order, which is something worth considering. We use co-author analysis software independently developed to check three kinds of fixed co-author networks to explore author contributions, influence, and Author Activity Index rank in collaboration networks and use the rank we calculated to further explain author contributions in the networks. Results show that Chinese-X (e.g., Chinese-American) authors have pushed the collaboration between country and country and almost every kind of small network has a top author in it to gather others together. The modified author activity index rank list may reflect real research level. Author collaboration patterns have been impacted by the kinds of their institutions to some degree. These results can undoubtedly promote the international collaboration and the innovation process in the similar emerging technology fields.

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Acknowledgments

This research is partly funded by the General Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.71373019), the National Key Technology R&D Program (Grant No. 2013BAH20F01) and the Program for Excellent Talents in Beijing of China (Grant No. 2011D009011000006). The authors would like to thank for the help from all teachers, especially Alan L. Porter, Jan Youtie and Philip Shapira in co-lab of Technology Innovation from Beijing Institute of Technology, Georgia Tech and the University of Manchester and Harry Rothman who is the chief-editor of Technology Analysis and Strategic Management (TASM) Journal.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management & Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China

    Xuefeng Wang, Rongrong Li, Shiming Ren, Donghua Zhu, Meng Huang & Pengjun Qiu

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  1. Xuefeng Wang
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  2. Rongrong Li
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  3. Shiming Ren
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  4. Donghua Zhu
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  5. Meng Huang
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  6. Pengjun Qiu
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Correspondence to Rongrong Li.

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Wang, X., Li, R., Ren, S. et al. Collaboration network and pattern analysis: case study of dye-sensitized solar cells. Scientometrics 98, 1745–1762 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-013-1180-8

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