Does repetition equal more of the same? tie strength and thematic orientation in R&D networks.

Despite organizations' documented tendency to repeat research collaborations with prior partners, scholarly understanding on the implications of recurring interactions for the content of the collaboration has been fairly limited. This paper investigates whether and under what conditions organizations use repeated research partnerships to explore new topics, as opposed to deepening their expertise in a single one (exploitation). The empirical analysis is based on the Spanish region of Valencia and its publicly funded R&D network. Employing lexical similarity to compare the topic and content of project abstracts, we find that strong ties are not always associated with the exploitation of the same topic. Yet, exploration is more likely when at least one of the partners mobilizes a network of distinct contacts and can access novel knowledge.

Who Am I? The Influence of Knowledge Networks on PhD Students' Formation of a Researcher Role Identity.

Higher education institutes both foster the advancement of knowledge and address society's socioeconomic and environmental challenges. To fulfil these multiple missions requires significant changes to how the role of a researcher is perceived e.g. a researcher identity that is congruent with the objective of contributing to fundamental knowledge while also engaging with non-academic actors, broadly, and entrepreneurship, in particular. We argue that the early stages of an academic career-namely the PhD training trajectory-and the knowledge networks formed during this period have a major influence on the scientist's future capacity to develop an appropriate researcher role identity. We draw on knowledge network and identity theories to investigate how the knowledge networks (i.e. business, scientific and career knowledge networks) of PhD students promote changes to, reinforce or conflict with the perception of a researcher role identity. Our longitudinal qualitative network study includes PhD students and their supervisors funded by the H2020 FINESSE project. At the network level, we show that scientific knowledge is distributed equally throughout young academics' networks but that entrepreneurial (business) and career knowledge tend to be concentrated around certain individuals in these networks. On the PhD student level, we observe different pronunciations of the researcher role identity linked to students' interactions with their knowledge networks. We distinguish identity conflicts due to misalignment between ego and alters which leads to withdrawal from the network. Our findings have practical implications and suggest that universities and PhD student supervisors should support PhD students to develop a researcher identity which is in line with the individual PhD student's expectations.

Do women in science form more diverse research networks than men? An analysis of Spanish biomedical scientists.

This paper examines the role of gender in the formation of research collaboration networks, by investigating the composition of networks through connections to diverse professional communities. Drawing on an ego network approach, we examine gender differences among researchers' networks in terms of partner diversity, openness and brokerage roles. We use data from 897 valid responses to a questionnaire administered to biomedical scientists in Spain, which enquired into multiple aspects of personal research networks. Our findings show that women form more diverse networks and brokerage triads than men. This result is reinforced if we consider the most heterogeneous brokerage triads in terms of professional differences among network partners (i.e., consultant and liaison). Our results suggest that women are more likely to access non-redundant knowledge and richer research perspectives via their knowledge-flow intermediary roles. This research suggests the need for analyses of gender and networks that go beyond a gender-to-gender approach.

Correction: Do women in science form more diverse research networks than men? An analysis of Spanish biomedical scientists.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0238229.].

[Collaboration with universities and innovate activity in the Spanish pharmaceutical industry (2003-2005)]. / Colaboración con universidades y desempeño innovador en la industria farmacéutica española (2003-2005).

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This article examines, on the one hand, the impact of the cooperation between universities and industry on the performance of innovative activities conducted by pharmaceutical firms in Spain and, on the other hand, the article assesses the impact of universities as a source of information for the innovative activities of the Spanish pharmaceutical industry. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Data were drawn from the panel of technological innovation, based on the innovation surveys from 2003 to 2005. The survey included 132 pharmaceutical firms and information was available on the firms' innovative outputs (four indicators), cooperation with universities, and the firms' assessment of the importance of universities as an information source for innovative activities. Firm size, R&D expenditures and the use of biotechnology were used as control variables. RESULTS: The impact of cooperation with universities was found to be positive and significant (p > 0.01). Moreover, the results show a positive impact of both the use of biotechnology and the use of universities as a source of information on firms' innovative performance (p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Pharmaceutical firms that cooperate with universities are more likely to apply for patents and to be granted them. Moreover, the share of sales from new products is larger among firms that have cooperated with universities than among those that have not.

Does Interdisciplinary Research Lead to Higher Citation Impact? The Different Effect of Proximal and Distal Interdisciplinarity.

This article analyses the effect of degree of interdisciplinarity on the citation impact of individual publications for four different scientific fields. We operationalise interdisciplinarity as disciplinary diversity in the references of a publication, and rather than treating interdisciplinarity as a monodimensional property, we investigate the separate effect of different aspects of diversity on citation impact: i.e. variety, balance and disparity. We use a Tobit regression model to examine the effect of these properties of interdisciplinarity on citation impact, controlling for a range of variables associated with the characteristics of publications. We find that variety has a positive effect on impact, whereas balance and disparity have a negative effect. Our results further qualify the separate effect of these three aspects of diversity by pointing out that all three dimensions of interdisciplinarity display a curvilinear (inverted U-shape) relationship with citation impact. These findings can be interpreted in two different ways. On the one hand, they are consistent with the view that, while combining multiple fields has a positive effect in knowledge creation, successful research is better achieved through research efforts that draw on a relatively proximal range of fields, as distal interdisciplinary research might be too risky and more likely to fail. On the other hand, these results may be interpreted as suggesting that scientific audiences are reluctant to cite heterodox papers that mix highly disparate bodies of knowledge--thus giving less credit to publications that are too groundbreaking or challenging.