ArticlePloS one2017
Effects of research complexity and competition on the incidence and growth of coauthorship in biomedicine.
Article in PloS one, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Who deserves credit, who receives credit? A cross-sectional survey on the handling of co-authorship in medical dissertations in Germany.Research integrity and peer review · 2026Article
- What are the limits to biomedical research acceleration through general-purpose AI?Scientific reports · 2026Review
- Bibliometric and social network analysis of a Clinical and Translational Resource awardee: An Oklahoma experience 2014-2021.Journal of clinical and translational science · 2024Article
- Analysis of gender representation, authorship inflation, and institutional affiliation in abstract acceptance: a 5-year study.Global surgical education : journal of the Association for Surgical Education · 2023Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on publication dynamics and non-COVID-19 research production.BMC medical research methodology · 2021Article
- Authorship growth in contemporary medical literature.SAGE open medicine · 2020Article
- Games academics play and their consequences: how authorship,Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Reporting of data analysis methods in psychiatric journals: Trends from 1996 to 2018.International journal of methods in psychiatric research · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundInvestigations into the factors behind coauthorship growth in biomedical research have mostly focused on specific disciplines or journals, and have rarely controlled for factors in combination or considered changes in their effects over time. Observers often attribute the growth to the increasing complexity or competition (or both) of research practices, but few attempts have been made to parse the contributions of these two likely causes.
objectivesWe aimed to assess the effects of complexity and competition on the incidence and growth of coauthorship, using a sample of the biomedical literature spanning multiple journals and disciplines.
methodsArticle-level bibliographic data from PubMed were combined with publicly available bibliometric data from Web of Science and SCImago over the years 1999-2007. We selected four predictors of coauthorship were selected, two (study type, topical scope of the study) associated with complexity and two (financial support for the project, popularity of the publishing journal) associated with competition. A negative binomial regression model was used to estimate the effects of each predictor on coauthorship incidence and growth. A second, mixed-effect model included the journal as a random effect.
resultsCoauthorship increased at about one author per article per decade. Clinical trials, supported research, and research of broader scope produced articles with more authors, while review articles credited fewer; and more popular journals published higher-authorship articles. Incidence and growth rates varied widely across journals and were themselves uncorrelated. Most effects remained statistically discernible after controlling for the publishing journal. The effects of complexity-associated factors held constant or diminished over time, while competition-related effects strengthened. These trends were similar in size but not discernible from subject-specific subdata.
conclusionsCoauthorship incidence rates are multifactorial and vary with factors associated with both complexity and competition. Coauthorship growth is likewise multifactorial and increasingly associated with research competition.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.