Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Scientific collaboration networks are a form of unequally distributed social capital that shapes both researcher job placement and long-term research productivity and prominence. However, the role of collaboration networks in shaping the gender and racial diversity of the scientific workforce remains unclear. Here we propose a computational null model to investigate the degree to which early-career scientific collaborators with representationally diverse cohorts of scholars are associated with forming or participating in more diverse research groups as established researchers. When testing this hypothesis using two large-scale, longitudinal datasets on scientific collaborations, we find that the gender and racial diversity in a researcher's early-career collaboration environment is strongly associated with the diversity of their collaborators in their established period. This diversity-association effect is particularly prominent for men. Coupled with gender and racial homophily between advisors and advisees, collaborator diversity represents a generational effect that partly explains why changes in representation within the scientific workforce tend to happen very slowly.
Source: Nature Computational Science
Language: English
Subfield: Safety Research
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $12,690
Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China, Beihang University, Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, California Center for Population Research, University of California, Los Angeles, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
OpenAlex ID: W4409523314