Characterization of science mapping of Iranian cancer researchers’ co-authorship network in web of science service during 2000-2013 time period

Abstract

Considering the critical role played by medical sciences in human life, the significance of conducting research in the development of these sciences as well as the importance of co-authorship in enhancing the quality of science products, the present research attempts to analyze cancer co-authorship network as an important and challenging medical field. Analyzing the components of this network allows for shedding light on the size of co-authorship on national and international levels as well as introducing the most influential Iranian researchers in the field of cancer. This research examined the structure of Iranian cancer researchers’ co-authorship network during 2000-2013 via adopting the social network analysis approach. For more analysis the relationships held between the researchers as well as identifying the major contributors to the field, centrality measures of the network were computed. The findings revealed that a clustering coefficient of 0.57% and the density of 10% are relatively adequate for caner-focused co-authorship networks. The studied network contains a primary, consistent cluster and a secondary cluster with only two authors. Oncology, occupational health, digestion and internal medicine researchers had the highest collaboration levels in this network. Finally, Mohagheghi, Mahmoudi, and Malek Zadeh were identified as the most influential researchers of Iran's cancer-focused co-authorship network and most influential cutoff points in network consistency were Iranshahi, Ghadri, Mahmoudi, Shafi’ei, Ali Moghaddam and Eftekhari. This network covers 8 topical subdivisions with consistent distribution across the network.