Research programme


RESEARCH EVALUATION; 2010; 19(1):19 - 27

Identification of converging research areas using publication and citation data

Authors: Buter RK, Noyons ECM, van Raan AFJ
Affiliations: Leiden Univ, Leiden Univ

Abstract:
Converging research is the emergence of new interdisciplinary research from fields which showed limited mutual interdisciplinary connections before. We describe three search strategies to identify converging research using data extracted from the WoS, including the social sciences and humanities. The field-to-field references (FFR) strategy uses citations from one journal subject category (JSC), to another; the keyword sets (KWS) strategy tracks the co-occurrence of keywords from different JSCs; and the affiliation patterns (AFP) strategy traces the co-occurrence of fields of research in author affiliations of papers. Resulting publication sets were assessed using data such as journal names, titles of publications, and titles of cited publications. Experts validated nine converging research areas that were detected using the KWS and FFR strategies; none were found with AFT strategy.

Publication type:
Article in Journal

Journals:
Research evalution
  
Authors (3)
Research programs (1)
  
R.K. (Renald), MSc Buter
Researcher. MSc in computer engineering (1997) Twente University. From June 1997 at CWTS. Current work on mapping projects and on Internet interface facilities. These projects are also the base of his Ph.D. work.
Dr. E.C.M. (Ed) Noijons
Centre for Science and Technology Studies
Senior researcher and research fellow and assistant director at CWTS. Coordinator of mapping studies.Education: Drs. Dutch Language and Literature (Universiteit Utrecht, 1989)PhD Quantitative studies of science (universiteit Leiden, 1999)
Prof. A.F.J. (Ton) van Raan
Professor of Science Studies. From 1985 to 2010 Director of CWTS. MSc Physics 1969 University of Utrecht; Ph.D. Physics, Utrecht, 1973. Lecturer and researcher (physics, astrophysics) in Utrecht (1969-1973), Bielefeld (1973-1979), Leiden (from 1977). Visiting scientist in several universities and ...