Is the promotion of research reflected in bibliometric data? A network analysis of highly cited papers on the Clusters of Excellence supported under the Excellence Initiative in Germany

Under the Excellence Initiative, a number of Clusters of Excellence in Germany have been supported since 2006 and 2007—including each a limited number of cooperating institutions. The aim of the present study is to investigate whether support for Clusters of Excellence since 2006 and 2007 is reflected in bibliometric network data. For this purpose, a comparison is made between network data in the period before support started (2003–2005) and in the period after support started (2009–2011). For these two periods, a co-authorship network is generated (based on the funded institutions). This is based on publications which are among the 1 % most frequently cited publications in their respective fields and publication year and which have at least one author from Germany. As the results show, the outcomes this yields for life sciences and natural sciences differ from each other. Whereas natural sciences display an effect of establishment of Clusters of Excellence on the bibliometric networks, this was not true of life sciences. After establishment of the Clusters of Excellence, the network in natural sciences not only contained more institutions of a Cluster of Excellence, but these institutions were distributed across fewer bibliometric clusters in the network than before establishment. In other words the structure of the Clusters of Excellence was better reflected in the network.