A new approach to computing the distances between research disciplines based on researcher collaborations and similarity measurement techniques

Abstract

The measurement of distance between research disciplines involves various approaches, with a focus on publication citation analysis. However, calculating discipline distance requires more than just selecting relevant information; it also involves choosing suitable quantification methods and similarity measures. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach to measuring the distance between research disciplines, referred to as a distance matrix. This approach is particularly useful when there is limited availability of citation data, providing an alternative method for quantifying the distance between disciplines. Our method counts co-occurrences of disciplines based on researcher collaborations in projects and evaluates various similarity measures to convert the co-occurrence matrix into a similarity matrix. We analyze the behavior of different similarity measures and propose functions to transform the similarity matrix into a distance matrix, capturing research discipline dissimilarity effectively. Additionally, we establish evaluation criteria for distance matrix quality. We implement our approach on the Flanders Research Information Space dataset, showing promising results. The distance matrix demonstrates satisfactory density scores, outperforming traditional approaches in skewness and deviation. The probability density functions of distances remain consistent over time, indicating stability. Furthermore, the distance matrix proves valuable for visualizing discipline profiles associated with the dataset, providing valuable insights.