Scientific collaboration levels of Iranian researchers in the Web of Science: a case study of social sciences

This study is set to analysis scientific collaboration network of Iranian researchers in the social sciences. The data extracted from Web of Science since the appearing first publication (with an affiliation to an Iranian university/institute) to the end of 2014. Statistical population consists of 9318 articles. Scientometrics methods and network analysis indicators were used to do the study. Bibexcel, HistCite, and VOS Viewer software were used to analyze the data. The results showed that the co-authored articles in the field of social sciences, has been increased during the period of study. Iran stands at the third position in Middle East after Israel and Turkey. Most collaborative countries with Iran were USA, UK and Canada. The result showed that Inter-institutional collaboration was 46.08 percent and Intra-institutional collaboration was 24.55 percent, and international collaboration was 22 percent. Overall results indicated the average collaboration coefficient was 64%, and the trend has been increasing which indicates an increased willingness by Iranians authors for cooperative papers. The most dominated model of authorship was two and three authored-articles respectively.