More highly cited publications are written by researchers who work with others across a variety of study fields

Researchers who collaborate with other researchers in a variety of research fields tend to publish more highly cited papers than those who typically only work with researchers in their field, according to a small team of researchers at Beijing Normal University and a colleague from Bar-Ilan University. The group discusses their findings regarding collaboration and the degree of impact of authorship of papers under various scenarios in their paper that was recently published. The paper describes how they examined the authorship of papers that were published in different journal.

Researchers submit a paper explaining their work to a reputable journal for publication when they arrive at conclusions, they believe are valuable to share. Many researchers desire not just to share what they have discovered but also to be acknowledged for their accomplishments. Citations are one method that others use to acknowledge their work in their own procedures when they carry out fresh study and publish their own papers. In this novel endeavor, the researchers asked what effect research cooperation would have on citations.

The work included finding 3,420 scholars who had written at least 50 publications and then examining the works’ citations as well as the backgrounds of other people with whom they had worked on projects.

Just 12% of partnerships encompassed three or more study topics, they discovered, indicating that most academics tended to work with others in a limited number of domains. They also discovered that academics with the most papers published tended to work with colleagues who had a particular area of expertise and received just an average amount of citations. But even though they only produced an average number of publications, researchers who collaborated with experts from different domains often had a greater effect and received more citations. Additionally, they discovered that the proportion of multi-topic cooperation has been gradually rising since the 1940s.

The researchers contend that single-topic research projects continue to predominate in science, even though these projects often produce less ground-breaking findings than those involving multi-field cooperation.