Impelling research productivity and impact through collaboration: a scientometric case study of knowledge management

A case study for impelling university research productivity and impact through collaboration is presented. Scientometric results support the hypothesis that a knowledge management model increased research collaboration and thereby boosted a university’s number of publications and citations. Results come from fifteen years of data at a Mexican university with 2400 researchers who produced 24,000 works in fifteen research disciplines. These data are treated with social network visualizations and algorithms to identify patterns of collaboration and clustering, as well as with normalizations to make disciplines comparable and to verify increasing citation impact. The knowledge management model implemented in the study may be a cost-effective way for universities to intensify collaboration and improve research performance.