Search

This paper aims to understand how a group of academics cite each others' work through time, considering the simultaneous co-evolution of three networks representing their scientific collaboration, the journals in which they publish and institutional membership. It argues that both social and cognitive processes contribute to these dynamics. Two types of network mechanisms are considered specifically: closures by affiliation and closures by association. To assess whether these mechanisms generate the macro features of the network under study, we propose new features for three-mode multilevel networks such as the mixed geodesic distances, mixed degree distributions, and the mixed quadrilateral census. We investigate whether a micro-level model that considers the above-mentioned network mechanisms is able to correctly reproduce these features. We apply stochastic actor-oriented models (SAOMs) for one-mode and two-mode networks to link the micro-macro processes using a dataset of a scientific community of astronomers from 2013 to 2015. The results suggest that social relationships grounded on scientific collaboration and proximity based on institutional affiliation are more accurately suited to understanding the co-evolution of the network of citations than an alternative approach that merely considers cognitive-based networks measured as the similarity in publishing in the same journals. • We investigate how a group of academics cite each others' work through time considering the co-evolution of a multilevel network. • The co-evolution of a three-mode multilevel network is analysed considering cross-level effects. • New and already available measures for diagnostics are used for statistical models for social networks to identify how micro-mechanisms trigger different structures at the macro level. • Social relationships grounded on scientific collaboration and space proximity based on institutional affiliation are more accurately suited to understand the co-evolution of the networks in a scientific network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite longstanding discussions and consequent improvements of gender representation in academia, the number of women working in academic research, their performance and their recognition still indicate the persistence of gender inequalities. Of the various mechanisms that may drive such inequality the one that relates the structure of research collaborative networks to the rewards that these networks facilitate is intriguing. If social networks play a role in academic performances and women are under-recognized compared to men, what are the mechanisms that relate networks to gender inequalities in academia? Do men and women obtain equal returns from similar network structure, or do women have to build different networks to obtain similar returns? This article contributes to the theoretical debate that aims to disentangle the mechanisms by which social networks may affect gendered success. We do so by looking at networks of collaborations to research projects in 10 years of public funding in Italy. We use a permutation t-test analysis to see if men and women, who are equally successful in getting funded for a high number of projects, build equal or unequal collaborative networks, and if these differences vary across disciplines with more or less tenured women. Our methodological contribution proposes an innovative way of measuring brokerage and constraint in one mode projections of bipartite networks, highly clustered and valued, and measures gender homophily by taking into account the higher or lower number of women available for collaborations in different disciplinary sectors. We find that men and women build similar collaborative networks; we also find that the more women are tenured in a discipline, the more they occupy higher ranks and lead research projects. When women's presence and high-rank roles increase, we see that men's collaborative networks are significantly more heterophilous, although women do not seem to significantly increase their collaborations with other women. We then regress the individual measures of network structure and composition against the average amount of money scholars receive per project and we interact each measure with gender, to observe if women obtain similar returns to men by building equal collaborative networks. Our results show that despite the similarities in network configurations in nearly all disciplines women still receive less funding than men. This suggests that an increased representation of women in academic fields is not enough to reduce inequalities. Our results are not directly generalizable to other international contexts, but the mechanisms that favor academic returns and exacerbate inequalities, and our methodological approach, are portable to other scientific and organizational contexts where collaborations are key to produce success. • We look at networks of collaborations to research projects in 10 years of academic funding in Italy. • We propose new brokerage and constraint measures for projections of bipartite networks. • Men and women build similar networks, and when women's numbers increase men work more with women. • Despite the similarities in network configurations women still receive less funding than men. • Gender inequalities seem to be related to the lack of women in leadership positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]