Handcrafted by 16 men: The impact of single and multiple authorship in collaborative research networks

It is now widely believed that the more numerous the authors of a scientific paper, the greater is the likelihood of higher citation impact. By contrast, this paper considers a set of single- and multiple-authored publications in a group of matched journals that have resulted from collaborative research networks funded by the Austrian Science Fund, and presents evidence that no statistically significant relationship is found between multiple-authored papers and higher citation impact over single-authored papers. Moreover, within the data set examined, some evidence is found of a negative relationship between increasing numbers of authors and higher citation impact. The implication is drawn that where research is carried out within larger networks where researchers may benefit from a more general rather than a more specific collaboration, some researchers may publish their more important work through single-authored papers in order to enhance their reputations. Further implications of these findings are then considered for research funders and researchers. © Beech Tree Publishing 2005.