A discovery's real-world reach depends as much on the collaboration network it moves through as on the discovery itself.
impact(t+1) += citations_received
spread ~ collaboration_density
- Researchers — individual scientists forming nodes in the collaboration graph.
- Collaboration density — how many co-authorship links the average researcher has.
- Publication rate — how often researchers produce new citable findings.
- Citation threshold — impact level a paper needs before it's counted as influential and re-cited.
Bibliometric studies show findings from densely collaborative networks propagate to new fields roughly twice as fast as isolated single-author work.