Networks of Scientific Communications
In his 1987 book Networks of Scientific Communications and the Organization of Fundamental Research (in Russian) Georgiy G. Dumenton analyzed personal scientific relations in a cluster of six, tightly connected life sciences institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences located in the Moscow region in the period between 1967 and 1979. The map shows one side of the two-sided appendix to the book comprising Figures 1-39 referred to in the text.
Using data acquired via interviews, questionnaires, and participatory observation, Figure 3 shows continued (grey) and discontinued (black) personal scientific relations in the institutes M4 and M2.
Relationships are ranked from the top to the bottom according to the duration of the relationship in years. The tail of the diagram with durations of 30 and more years represents almost life-long relationships.
Dumenton also recorded motivations and interests for scientific relations and developed a typology of epistemic aspects of scientific collaborations. Figure 6 lists categories for evaluating the scientific collaborations such as evaluation of the researcher’s ideas and results; her/his methods; the state of equipment and other research instruments/technology; the exchange of equipment and other research instruments/technology. Figure 5 shows correlations between these categories and their development over time.
Dumenton, Georgiy. 1987. Networks of Scientific Communications. Moscow, Russia. Courtesy of Nauka and Georgiy Dumenton. In Katy Börner & Elisha F. Hardy (Eds.), 5th Iteration (2009): Science Maps for Science Policy Makers, Places and Spaces: Mapping Science.
