Co-Authorship of scientists in the energy field: an exploratory study of the ETDE World Energy Database (ETDEWEB) using Social Network Analysis

This paper presents a preliminary exploratory study, using a social network analysis (SNA) approach to examine the structure of co-authorship collaboration within the research community in the energy field from 1995 to 2008. The domain of the study is Portuguese scientists, working either in Portugal or abroad; by foreign scientists working in Portugal or by scientists who have co-authored with either of these groups. The study uses the most common measures of macro (whole network) and micro (actor-centered) structures of this collaboration. The data used to design the social network was obtained from the Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDE)’s Energy Database, which is the largest collection of energy research and technology literature in the world created under the umbrella of the International Energy Agency/Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (IEA/OECD).