I have noticed some people on research gate have up to 30-50% of papers co-authored with the same individual, who also has high overlap with other individuals. Others show relatively minor overlap. You can see this by looking at the Top Authors link and seeing how many publications a top author has co-written with a person. Is this a sign of a truly collaborative partnership, a sign of different standards for co-authorship, or a sign that some researchers are non independent of one another? I ask this because in the Canadian NSERC funding system, individual grants are supposed to be evaluated based on the quality of the researcher. When people always co-author with the same individuals it becomes challenging to assess them as independent from their co-author. What are people's thoughts on this in terms of evaluating single grants to a research lab?
To answer your subquestions: Yes, No and Yes.
My third answer needs the most explanation. Co-authors do not just happen. You have to find them, work closely with them, then build each other up and cherish and maintain the relationship. You have complementary, but intersecting skills and knowledge bases. Because co-authorship does not happen randomly, there is definitely not a statistical independence. I am not going to be drawn today into how to assess the loner researcher vs the group researcher.
I am skeptical when I see a researcher that appears not to be able to produce something on her own or at least as part of a 2-person team. When the same co-authors are used over and over, I am also concerned about the ability/willingness of the author to form new collaborations.
Thanks for the response. This particular issue is relevant when it comes to evaluating not only scientific couples, but when evaluating tenure or promotion applications in departments where strong collaborations have been forged. Collaboration is good. Collusion, if it is occurring to produce repeated co-authorship, is not. I guess that goes without saying.
Don't seek to use the author lines to detect collusion or collaboration! Look at the papers themselves.
Why prejudice powerful partners? People with no left arms need people with right arms to help them.
True, but in the Canadian funding system, grants are usually given out to solitary scientists. (group grants do occur but rarely within the primary discovery grant system) Rarely am I aware of people applying to NSERC as partners. Perhaps it is different in other agencies. This question came about as a simple one for adjudicating merit of researchers and how to be fair about it to productive small labs as well as productive joint endeavours.
I consider this subject interesting that needs to be looked into more carefully. However, while the conjecturse made by @Glenn May be absolutely valid in many cases they may be misleading in many other cases. For instance a professor who advises/supervises research may be a co-starauthor with many of his/her students having studied at different times . The advisor in such case may seem to be a dominating partner but as a fact the other author is a more significant partner. It may get worse in the case of group research (usually lab experiments that involve large teams/groups working together).
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