Exploring cooperative game mechanisms of scientific coauthorship networks

Abstract

Scientific coauthorship, generated by collaborations and competitions among researchers, reflects effective organizations of human resources. Researchers, their expected benefits through collaborations, and their cooperative costs constitute the elements of a game. Hence, we propose a cooperative game model to explore the evolution mechanisms of scientific coauthorship networks. The model generates geometric hypergraphs, where the costs are modelled by space distances, and the benefits are expressed by node reputations, that is, geometric zones that depend on node position in space and time. Modelled cooperative strategies conditioned on positive benefit-minus-cost reflect the spatial reciprocity principle in collaborations and generate high clustering and degree assortativity, two typical features of coauthorship networks. Modelled reputations generate the generalized Poisson parts, and fat tails appeared in specific distributions of empirical data, for example, paper team size distribution. The combined effect of modelled costs and reputations reproduces the transitions that emerged in degree distribution, in the correlation between degree and local clustering coefficient, and so on. The model provides an example of how individual strategies induce network complexity, as well as an application of game theory to social affiliation networks.