Collaboration experiences across scientific disciplines and cohorts

Even though there is a rich discussion in the literature about co-authorship practices, many of the existing studies do not offer a dynamic picture of co-authorship patterns and experiences across disciplines. To address the research gap, our study aims to explore several key dimensions of the social dynamics in co-authorship practices. In particular, we examine cohort differences in collaboration patterns across disciplines and cohort differences in negative collaboration experiences across disciplines. To conduct our analyses, we use data from a national survey of scholars and engineers in 108 top research universities. Our results indicate that the number of collaborators at one’s own university is correlated with an increase in negative collaboration experiences, while an increase in collaborators at other universities is not correlated with an increase in negative collaboration experiences. In addition, we conclude that junior scholars are more likely to have negative collaboration experiences than their senior peers. This result is true even after controlling for gender and discipline.