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Contradicting incentives for research collaboration

Author

Listed:
  • Charlotte Wien

    (Syddansk Universitet)

  • Bertil F. Dorch

    (Syddansk Universitet)

  • Asger Væring Larsen

    (Syddansk Universitet)

Abstract

This study describes the Danish publication award system (BFI), investigates whether its built-in incentives have had an effect on publication behavior at the University of Southern Denmark, and discusses the possible future implications on researcher incentives should universities wish to measure BFI on the individual level. We analyzed publication data from the university CRIS system (Pure) and from SciVal. Several studies indicate that co-authored scholarly journal articles attract more citations than single author articles. The reason for this are not clear, however, research collaboration across institutions and countries is commonly accepted in the research community and among university managements as one way of increasing the researcher’s and institution’s reputation and impact. The BFI system is designed to award scholarly publication activity at Danish universities, especially publication in international journals of high status. However, we find that the built-in incentives leave the researcher and his or her institution with a dilemma: If the researchers optimize their performance by forming author groups with external collaborators, the optimal way of doing so for the researchers is not the optimal way seen from the perspective of the university. Our analysis shows that the typical article has 6.5 authors, two of which are internal, and that this has remained stable since the introduction of the BFI. However, there is variation across the disciplines. While ‘the Arts and Humanities’ and ‘the Social Sciences’ seem to compose author groups in a way which does not optimize the performance of the institution, both ‘Health’ and ‘the Natural Sciences’ seem to optimize according to criteria other than those specified in the BFI.

Suggested Citation

  • Charlotte Wien & Bertil F. Dorch & Asger Væring Larsen, 2017. "Contradicting incentives for research collaboration," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(2), pages 903-915, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:112:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-017-2412-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-017-2412-0
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Sei‐Ching Joanna Sin, 2011. "International coauthorship and citation impact: A bibliometric study of six LIS journals, 1980–2008," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(9), pages 1770-1783, September.
    2. Fredrik Niclas Piro & Dag W. Aksnes & Kristoffer Rørstad, 2013. "A macro analysis of productivity differences across fields: Challenges in the measurement of scientific publishing," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(2), pages 307-320, February.
    3. Vladimir Pislyakov & Elena Shukshina, 2014. "Measuring excellence in Russia: Highly cited papers, leading institutions, patterns of national and international collaboration," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 65(11), pages 2321-2330, November.
    4. Christoph Bartneck & Jun Hu, 2010. "The fruits of collaboration in a multidisciplinary field," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 85(1), pages 41-52, October.
    5. Sei-Ching Joanna Sin, 2011. "International coauthorship and citation impact: A bibliometric study of six LIS journals, 1980–2008," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(9), pages 1770-1783, September.
    6. Dorte Henriksen, 2016. "The rise in co-authorship in the social sciences (1980–2013)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(2), pages 455-476, May.
    7. Kjetil K. Haugen & Frode E. Sandnes, 2016. "The new Norwegian incentive system for publication: from bad to worse," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1299-1306, November.
    8. Fredrik Niclas Piro & Dag W. Aksnes & Kristoffer Rørstad, 2013. "A macro analysis of productivity differences across fields: Challenges in the measurement of scientific publishing," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(2), pages 307-320, February.
    9. Dag W Aksnes, 2003. "Characteristics of highly cited papers," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 159-170, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Daniella Bayle Deutz & Thea Marie Drachen & Dorte Drongstrup & Niels Opstrup & Charlotte Wien, 2021. "Quantitative quality: a study on how performance-based measures may change the publication patterns of Danish researchers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(4), pages 3303-3320, April.

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