Women, artificial intelligence, and key positions in collaboration networks: Towards a more equal scientific ecosystem

Scientific collaboration in almost every discipline is mainly driven by the need of sharing knowledge, expertise, and pooled resources. Science is becoming more complex which has encouraged scientists to involve more in collaborative research projects in order to better address the challenges. As a highly interdisciplinary field with a rapidly evolving scientific landscape, artificial intelligence calls for researchers with special profiles covering a diverse set of skills and expertise. Understanding gender aspects of scientific collaboration is of paramount importance, especially in a field such as artificial intelligence that has been attracting large investments. Using social network analysis, natural language processing, and machine learning and focusing on artificial intelligence publications for the period from 2000 to 2019, in this work, we comprehensively investigated the effects of several driving factors on acquiring key positions in scientific collaboration networks through a gender lens. It was found that, regardless of gender, scientific performance in terms of quantity and impact plays a crucial in possessing the "social researcher" in the network. However, subtle differences were observed between female and male researchers in acquiring the "local influencer" role.

Influence of cognitive, geographical, and collaborative proximity on knowledge production of Canadian nanotechnology

Incorporating existing knowledge is vital for innovating, discovering, and generating new ideas. Knowledge production through research and invention is the key to scientific and technological development. As an emerging technology, nanotechnology has already proved its great potential for the global economy, attracting considerable federal investments. Canada is reported as one of the major players in producing nanotechnology research. In this paper, we focused on the main drivers of knowledge production and diffusion by analyzing Canadian nanotechnology researchers. We hypothesized that knowledge production in Canadian nanotechnology is influenced by three key proximity factors, namely cognitive, geographical, and collaborative. Using statistical analysis, social network analysis, and machine learning techniques we comprehensively assessed the influence of the proximity factors on academic knowledge production. Our results not only prove a significant impact of the three key proximity factors but also their predictive potential.