RESEARCH ARTICLE - Am MIT spezialisierte KI-Forschung

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Peer-making: The interconnections between PhD
thesis committee membership and copublishing

Marie-Pierre Bès1*

, Jérôme Lamy2

, and Marion Maisonobe3

1LISST—Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès
2CNRS—CERTOP—Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès
3CNRS—Géographie-cités
*Marie-Pierre Bès passed away while this manuscript was under review.

Schlüsselwörter: astrophysics, archaeology, economy, Netzwerke, PhD, PhD committee

ABSTRAKT

This article relies on the analysis of social networks to compare the networks at work in the
composition of thesis committees between 2003 Und 2008 in a French provincial university in
three very different disciplines (astrophysics, archaeology, and economics) so as to test the
hypothesis that connections actually existed before graduation. Were members coauthors of
scientific publications or were committees constituted only for the sake of awarding a PhD?
Astrophysics and its “equipment” ethos is the one that most often superimposes committee
membership and copublishing. Archaeology falls somewhere in between, due to the greatest
scarcity of committee members. The last of the three, economics, actually separates the two
types of collaboration by most frequently inviting international researchers.

EINFÜHRUNG

1.
Entering the field of science implies meeting a series of demands meant to test the graduate’s
capacity to propose original scientific approaches but also to comply with the requirements
generally set and agreed to by the research community (Millett & Nettles, 2006). While thesis
committees (d.h., the examining committee acting at the thesis defense) a priori are transitory
communities set up only for the sake of awarding a doctorate, the guiding hypothesis of this
article is that they are shaped by some previous social density. Supervisors must embody dis-
ciplinary expectations, compliance with scientific ethos, norms validating the required work,
and capacity for a critical evaluation of results. The group of peers thereby selected must as-
sess the work presented but must also stand for the broader research community working in
the field that the graduate will join.

There have been few studies so far to understand the complex processes at work in setting
up thesis committees, to grasp the dynamics of scientific validation as well as the different
types of relationships developed between and with committee members. Some studies have
focused on the gender-based or linguistic distribution of PhD students when graduating
(Breimer & Leksell, 2011; Breimer & Nilsson, 2010; Pezzoni, Mairesse et al., 2016). Others
have underlined the influence of first publications on careers (Breimer & Nilsson, 2014;
Fonseca, Vellosi et al., 1998) without precisely measuring the concrete impact of the super-
visors’ and committee members’ support (Ehrenberg, Zuckerman et al., 2010, P. 212). We sug-
gest a novel approach, focusing on committee members’ copublishing practices and, als

Keine offenen Zugänge

Tagebuch

Zitat: Bès, M.-P., Lamy, J., &
Maisonobe, M. (2021). Peer-making:
The interconnections between PhD
thesis committee membership and
copublishing. Quantitative Science
Studien, 2(3), 1048–1070. https://doi.org
/10.1162/qss_a_00143

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00143

Peer Review:
https://publons.com/publon/10.1162
/qss_a_00143

Erhalten: 9 Februar 2021
Akzeptiert: 19 Mai 2021

Korrespondierender Autor:
Jérôme Lamy
jerome.lamy@laposte.net

Handling-Editor:
Ludo Waltman

Urheberrechte ©: © 2021 Marie-Pierre Bès,
Jérôme Lamy, and Marion Maisonobe.
Veröffentlicht unter Creative Commons
Namensnennung 4.0 International
(CC BY 4.0) Lizenz.

Die MIT-Presse

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

aside, on whether and to what extent PhD students are included in these research
communities.

Our hypothesis is that setting up a thesis committee may well be an opportunity for rein-
forcing previous collaborations, actually evidenced by joint publications. Gleichzeitig,
PhD graduation, which signals PhD students’ entrance into the field of science, may be dou-
bled up by a joint publication with one of the committee members. PhD students’ contribution
to scientific production is consistent (Larivière, 2012; Watt, 2012), and helps reinforce their
recognition as fully fledged members of the research community (Donner, 2020).

In diesem Artikel, we use social network analysis (SNA) to reveal the various types of thesis
validation communities. This methodological and heuristic choice relies on a great number
of research works carried out in sociology of science (Katz & Martin, 1997; Kretschmer,
1994; Moody, 2004; Newman, 2001, 2004).

Our investigation focuses on the formation of PhD thesis committees in three research de-
partments from 2003 Zu 2008 in the city of Toulouse, Frankreich. The choice of this specific period
allows us to grasp the way thesis committees were formed before the significant institutional
changes that affected the French university system in 2009: a generalized trend to shorten the-
sis duration (including in social sciences), parity of standards in the constitution of juries, Und
the gradual disappearance of unfunded theses. We compare the actual publishing practices
of PhD students and of their committee members in three different disciplines (astrophysics,
economics, and archaeology).

To grasp the disciplinary specificities observed and to shed light on certain internal differ-
ences within the research departments under consideration, we complement the social net-
work analysis of jury composition and coauthorship networks with qualitative material. A
series of 10 interviews carried out with PhD thesis directors makes it possible to qualify the
links observed and to understand the structuring of some of the thesis committees in our study.
This article advocates a close articulation between quantitative and qualitative practices in
science and technology studies; we therefore follow the path outlined by Leydesdorff,
Ràfols, and Milojevic(cid:1) (2020). This is why we do not separate, in the analysis, the study of
copublications from the specific conditions of their realization.

Abschnitt 2 examines previous attempts to characterize the scientific community and gradu-
ates’ admission, carried out in sciences and technology studies. Abschnitt 3 details the material
collected, explains the method used to process it, and provides a general description of the
Daten. Abschnitt 4 is an analysis of the various copublishing networks, which permits us to single
out the formation of structured peer communities for the purpose of PhD validation.

2. A COMMUNITY AND ITS CANDIDATES

2.1. Organization of the Scientific Community: In-Between Hierarchies and Networks

The organization of the scientific community (and of its disciplinary components) has been
the object of numerous sociohistorical studies which have demonstrated the importance of
the “entry fee” and the way social boundaries are quickly delineated (Mullins, 1972). Der
position occupied by PhD studies has often been studied by sociologists of science from
the perspective of the hierarchic relationships between supervisors and their PhD students.
Hagstrom’s work (1965) provides the twofold advantage of articulating the issue of thesis
supervisor/PhD student relationships with the issue of the differences between disciplines.
He describes the scientific world as rather individualistic, made up of dyadic relations gov-
erned by individualistic norms of independence. This type of relationship mostly fosters

Quantitative Science Studies

1049

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

exchanges along the logics of “reciprocal gift-giving” which also characterize the PhD
students/supervisors’ relationships, the former complying with the latter’s “domination” in re-
turn for being trained into research. Jedoch, Hagstrom insists that the forms of collaboration
differ according to three types of disciplines: theoretical sciences functioning rather individu-
ally and where PhD students merely contribute to their professors’ growing influence; labora-
tory sciences requiring assistants mastering scientific instruments; and “field” sciences, welche
demand distant investigations for which PhD students are extremely useful (Hagstrom, 1965,
S. 124 and following).

Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological concept of fields corroborates the way socioepistemic rela-
tionships between PhD students and supervisors are structured. When characterizing the sci-
entific field, Pierre Bourdieu points out that the “pretenders” or “candidates” confront “the
dominant” (d.h., the incumbent researchers) via “antagonistic strategies.” According to him,
the “dominant” wish to keep their positions and all the institutions that have brought them
where they are. Andererseits, candidates “may be geared towards succession strategies
securing safe and rather stable positions,” or “towards subversion strategies,” which are riskier
but whose potential benefits in terms of field redefinition are significant (Bourdieu, 1975,
S. 103–104). Those PhD students are not yet in a position in which they can a priori define their
own strategies: They are caught in power struggles, which structure their disciplinary field.

In Homo academicus, Bourdieu (1984, P. 129) suggests carrying out studies that could
“grasp the logics of the exchanges academics get involved in to form thesis committees (ein
academic asking a colleague to be part of a committee for the defense of a thesis he has
supervised implicitly commits to granting reciprocity, thus integrating a chain of continuous
exchanges), or for the sake of elections …”. Terry Shinn (1998) also analyzes PhD student/thesis
supervisor dyadic relationships as being based on implicit reciprocity: PhD students reinforce
their supervisor’s power, as he or she finds the topic and helps with publishing. Shinn also
demonstrates that researchers, in the course of their career, establish extensive social networks
and consolidate their results through more fully developed phenomenological explorations.
The social hierarchy of the scientific activity is therefore as much a hierarchy of “relationships”
as a strictly cognitive hierarchy.

Network analysis is definitely a particularly fertile field to study the communities involved
in research dynamics. Processing data collected by such analysis evidences some global struc-
tures that go beyond the organizational boundaries of scientific institutions—particularly all
the studies on copublishing (Newman, 2004), “invisible” communities tied up by co-
affiliations (thesis committees, disciplines, languages, usw), by citations (Milard & Tanguy,
2018), or by joint qualifications (Renisio & Zamith, 2015). daher, network analysis supple-
ments more classical studies which focus on the organization of this activity (Gingras, 1991).

In the literature, there are two types of SNA research work on the relationships established
while supervising or validating a thesis: Einerseits, In 2017, Chariker and his colleagues
published a network-based analysis of mentor-mentee/doctoral student-thesis supervisor rela-
tionships from the Academic Family Tree, a web-based database of theses defended over two
centuries in the United States. Their analysis indicates that the pattern of Nobel laureates’
mentoring relationships is nonrandom (Chariker, Zhang et al., 2017). Nobel laureates had a
greater number of Nobel laureate ancestors, descendants, mentees/grand mentees, and local
academic family.

Andererseits, some studies (Godechot, 2016; Renisio & Zamith, 2015; Verschueren,
2016), combined an analysis of research groups through their objective relationships (coau-
thoring, co-supervising, usw) with an analysis of differentiated individual positions such as PhD

Quantitative Science Studies

1050

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

students in front of thesis committees. The additional advantage of these studies is to acknowl-
edge the social and relationship component of thesis committees instead of only using the
rather naïve criteria of academic excellence. According to Godechot (2016), invitations to
PhD committees are an indicator of disciplinary relationship patterns through which the con-
cept of social capital can be explored at both individual and collective levels. Concerning the
EHESS1 recruiting process, the study demonstrates that statistical links exist between the prob-
ability for a PhD student of being granted a position and her or his supervisor’s network as well
as that of her or his committee.

By mobilizing network analysis and data on PhD committees, our article fits well into this
recent line of work. It contributes to enriching this emerging field of research by offering a
comparative point of view on three disciplines with very distinct characteristics (an experimen-
tal science: astrophysics; a fundamental science: standard economics; and a field science:
archaeology), whereas the previously cited articles each focused on specific disciplines2.

2.2. Role Played by Disciplines in Shaping Publishing Practices

Our research does not concern off-ground disciplinary scientific communities, but starts from
PhD theses carried out in three departments of the same major provincial city (Toulouse)3

(cid:129) the Institute of Research into the Fundamental Laws of the Universe (CESR, welche
merged with two other departments into the Research Institute in Astrophysics and
Planetology in 2011)

(cid:129) the GREMAQ (Research Group in Mathematical and Quantitative Economics), together

with the university doctoral school in economics

(cid:129) TRACES (the Laboratory of Archaeological Research on Cultures, Spaces and Societies)4.

We selected them along two sets of crossover criteria: Erste, their disciplines are very distant
from one another (astrophysics, economics, archaeology). Zweite, they stand for three major
cognitive areas (Physik, social science, Geschichte). Dritte, they are part of three departments of
similar importance, at least for their respective host universities (even though when compared
one to the other, the gaps in size are quite noticeable). Last of all, the three doctoral schools
they belong to are located in Toulouse.

The three departments studied correspond to three disciplines. daher, we must clarify
what is meant by discipline. Yves Gingras (1991) listed the characteristics of disciplines (als
opposed to professionalization); a discipline is characterized by its practice, its institutionali-
zation (via reproduction and dissemination systems), and the development of a social identity
(which may overlap with professionalization). Disciplines are a combination of a knowledge
base, some knowhow, orthodox references, and the central base for a set of people recognized

1 École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.
2 Pierre Verschueren (2016) has nevertheless used the data on post-war thesis committees held in physics in

Paris to show the chain existing between disciplines.

3 By doing so, we meant to avoid the Parisian tropism, that is to say, an overrepresentation of Parisian com-
mittee members on Parisian thesis defenses, and to make it easier to conduct interviews with PhD directors,
as we were all based in Toulouse at the time this research was done.

4 We also started looking at theses defended in another social science department of Toulouse 2 Universität
(FRAMESPA for “Southern France and Spain: history of societies from the Middle Ages up to nowadays”) Aber
collecting theses defended over the selected period in this history department looked quite difficult.

Quantitative Science Studies

1051

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

for their qualification (Knorr Cetina, 1999). Disciplines are rather autonomous but remain con-
nected to one another by a series of metaepistemic conventions (d.h., the search for truth, Die
use of rational arguments, objectivity) that provide some scientific convergence.

Our analysis means actually grasping the publishing practices of the groups studied at the
very core of the specific conventions of each discipline. David Pontille, in his thesis about
scientific authorship (2003), has shown that the ranking of authors characterizes the particular
way in which a discipline organizes, functions, and determines socioepistemic hierarchies.
According to us, the issue of publication visibility is central to our study of coauthorship, Sei-
cause graduates are bound to engage in some publishing practice that both determines their
relationship to their discipline and their relationship to other more experienced researchers. Von
building on three departments and three disciplines, we attempt to account for the most
marked differences (but also for the closest possible connections) existing in young candidates’
practices of scientific coauthorship.

The differences in collaborative practices (the more or less great number of copublishers)
depend on the specific epistemic concerns structuring each of the disciplines. In astrophysics,
the instrumental dimension comes first and requires that teams should work on common sub-
jects or shared techniques. Less systematically so, archaeology and its field constraints also
imply collaborative practices. Economics is oriented more towards humanities or fundamental
Mathematik (Hagstrom, 1964) and values individual production.

As shown below, we found that this overall organization of publication modalities in astro-
Physik, archaeology, and economics was actually the case (as demonstrated in our study) Und
should be contemplated as the background to the various specific patterns of copublishing
practices as instantiated at the time of a thesis defense.

3. DATA AND METHODS

3.1. Data Collection

Although our research focuses on the thesis as standing for a specific writing moment in the
young candidates’ experience, our sampling design is longitudinal. We have built a compre-
hensive corpus of theses defended in each of the three departments over the 2003–2008 pe-
Riod (that is before the new norms for committee composition in the 2009 reform, welche
imposed parity between local and outside members). The data collected concern PhD students
(either via their curricula on the departmental websites, oder, Manchmal, by contacting them).
Using thesis covers and laboratory databases, we pieced together the committees and collected
information about each member’s status (professor, researcher-lecturer, CNRS researcher,
andere), teaching and/or research place, nationality (taking in supervisors from foreign commit-
tees), and their publications (whether copublishing with PhD students or another member of
the committee (the focus of our analysis) as well as their overall publishing profile).

Zweite, we carried out some systematic research concerning PhD students’ copublications
with the members of their committee. To build up our corpus, we first used public bibliometric
Daten. In the case of the Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology we used the NASA/Astrophysics
Data System database, which collects articles published in astronomy, astrophysics, Physik, Und
geophysics (that is to say all the Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology disciplines). Concerning
the doctoral school of economics (together with the GREMAQ department), we drew on the
ECONPAPERS database (which collects over 800,000 articles in economics). For TRACES, Wir
used the French database DAPHNE (Data in Archaeology, Prehistory and History on the
Netz), which provides bibliography information convergence.

Quantitative Science Studies

1052

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

Obviously, it may be objected that the use of three different databases might have biased
our analysis. But we did not choose to draw on a single database (the Web of Science for
Beispiel), partly because this type of multidisciplinary database tends to overrepresent some
disciplines (particularly in the field of physics and natural sciences) at the expense of others
(especially historical sciences). Andererseits, for the sake of balance, the Web of Science
database was tested to assess the differences with the databases chosen: The specific databases
we used proved systematically better stocked. We opted for accurate corpora and preferred to
conform to the usual publishing practices in these disciplines. Darüber hinaus, although we limited
the thesis chronotope to the 2003–2008 period, we did not set any time limits on the PhD
students’ and committee members’ copublications. Selecting theses defended at that time
enabled us to observe ex-post publications up to 2012.

A database was built on the information collected from both PhD students and committee
members. Daher, we collected the number of publications of each PhD student as well as those
of each committee member. In addition to these individual data, we collected relational data
concerning the number of copublications between committee members and the number of
copublications between committee members and PhD students. Dann, we listed those who
were thus interconnected through their copublications.

A series of 10 Interviews (eight with economists carried out by Author 1, one with an
astrophysicist by Author 2 and one with an archaeologist by Author 1) complemented our
statistical data so as to confront researchers with the networks exposed by their copublications.
This exercise clarified several aspects concerning the way in which local teams were
structured.

3.2. Descriptive Analysis

Tisch 1 presents descriptive statistics about the PhD students in our corpus of theses.

For the same period (2003–2008), the number of theses per discipline is therefore different
(34, 22, Und 65), which is consistent with the difference in size of the three departments. Wann
focusing on PhD students, there are both heterogeneous publishing practices which will be
commented on later (all the PhD students in astrophysics had published one article) und in-
verging professional careers: Half of the astrophysicists and economists did not become
researcher-lecturers or researchers with a tenured position.

3.2.1. Committee members

From CVs on the departmental websites, we collected some statistics (nationality, Alter, place of
Ausbildung) concerning the supervisors presented below. Our set of extended data character-
izes the overall composition of committees per department and so per discipline (Tisch 2).

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

Tisch 1. Data on the PhD students and their thesis committees

Data

Astrophysics Archaeology

PhD students Number of PhD theses

Number of men among the PhD students

Number of PhD students having at least published one academic paper

Percentage of PhD students who became tenured

Quantitative Science Studies

Economics
65

78.6

47.7

1053

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

Tisch 2. Data on thesis committees

Data
Total number of committee members

Astrophysics
152 (34 theses)

Archaeology
85 (22 theses)

Economics
163 (65 theses)

Participation frequency (total number

4.5

of committee members/total number
of PhD theses)

Percentage of men

Percentage of members affiliated to

a French institution

Year of birth (median) and standard

1954

deviation

9 Jahre

Median number of committee

members/jury

3.8

1948

7 Jahre

2.5

1960

7 Jahre

Our sample of theses defended in economics displays an almost exclusive majority of male
supervisors, who were European but not local. The median year of birth is 1960 with rather
low standard deviation. They supervised an average of five theses over the period considered.

In astrophysics, female supervisors are more numerous. daher, this group looks more
local than the previous one. Astrophysics is singled out by the total number of committee
members (higher than the archaeologists and economists) and the bigger size of their commit-
tees (an average of 6.6 members per jury). Over the period, each supervisor supervised an
Durchschnitt von 1.5 theses.

In archaeology, our corpus comprises nine PhD supervisors, of whom three are women.
They supervised an average of 2.7 theses with a standard deviation of 2. In the group, eins
supervisor supervised 10 theses. Committee members were born around 1948.

3.2.2. Copublishing

Before presenting our analyses from the data collected in the three Toulouse departments, es ist
necessary to briefly introduce the publication practices in the three disciplines of our corpus
(number of coauthors, number of publications). In astrophysics, the average number of authors
per publication is 31.8 (with a median number of 11 coauthors). It is only 7.6 in archaeology
(with a median number of four coauthors) und nur 2.71 in economics (with a median number
of three coauthors). These copublishing collaborations are shaped by factors linked to com-
mon practices: common both to each of the disciplines and to their research communities and
not specific to the PhD students or to the committee members of our corpus.

Ähnlich, the average number of copublications per researcher in each of the three disci-
plines is disproportionate: 14.4 in astrophysics against 2.8 in archaeology and 2.6 in econom-
ics. It shows that research in astrophysics is far more collaborative (11 times as much as in
economics) but also more prolific (five times as much as economics) than the other two dis-
ciplines, which share similar characteristics of scientific production criteria.

Let us start with the global copublishing modes between PhD students and their commit-
tee and supervisor. In economics, 65 theses were defended, 46 of them with a PhD com-
mittee copublication (d.h., 70.7%). In archaeology, out of the 22 theses defended, 11 led to

Quantitative Science Studies

1054

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

Tisch 3.

Copublications of doctoral students and members of their thesis juries

PhD students

Number of theses

Disciplines

Median number of publications per PhD student

Copublications*

Total number of copublications

Total number of copublications/number of authors

(including the PhD student)

Percentage of jury members with whom the doctoral

student has published

Astrophysics
34

2,687

14.4

Archaeology

367

2.8

8.5

Economics
65

607

2.66

Number of copublications between the PhD student and
his or her supervisor/total number of copublications

13.62

0.59

1.05

Share of copublications between the PhD student and

84%

4.1%

11%

his or her supervisor on all its publications

Number of copublications between committee
members/total number of copublications

43.74

8.68

5.35

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

* The copublications taken into account are those that involved at least two members of the same committee (including the thesis director) and those
that involved the doctoral student with at least one of the members of his or her committee jury. The periods taken into account are respectively 1970–2011,
1972–2011 and 1974–2011.

copublications (50%). Last of all, in astrophysics all the theses (n = 34) were accompanied by
a copublication. This is a standard approach to work in astrophysics, where theses are most
often made up of a series of already published, or about to be published, articles (Tisch 1).

In our study, copublishing practices between PhD students and committee members, Und
then between committee members themselves, are seen as evidencing collaborations. Diese
publishing practices precede the thesis defense and concentrate the social relations that are
the object of our study. Copublishing involves a specific mode of socializing within the scien-
tific community: It implies some epistemic and sometimes hierarchical proximity in the case of
PhD students and thesis supervisors. Our sample of PhD students and committee members has
enabled us to collect their copublications so as to establish the statistics in Table 3.

Our sample of PhD students is characterized by a big difference in the number of publica-
tions between astrophysics and archaeology compared with economics, which is less prolific.
But the fact that the Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology depends on the thesis charter of
the doctoral school, which requires candidates to publish articles that will make up the body
of their thesis, should be taken into account. Mit anderen Worten, the publishing process itself is
“encapsulated” in the thesis sequence5. Dann, the observation of the PhD students’
copublications with members of their committee and with their supervisor reveals that both
archaeology and economics break away from the more collaborative model in astrophysics.

Copublishing between committee members in astrophysics (43.74 copublications) is thus
much more important and more collaborative than in the two other disciplines (Tisch 3). Bei
the Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology, the salience of major space projects (the most

5 There is no such requirement in economics. The GREMAQ activity reports over the period studied do not

mention any rules concerning the doctoral school.

Quantitative Science Studies

1055

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

recent being the Planck satellite), with the associated instrumental platforms and the abun-
dance of results, also accounts for the great number of co-signed publications.

In terms of copublishing, archaeology falls between astrophysics and economics. Their re-
lation to fieldwork (necessarily implying collaborative work) may account for this particu-
lar type of publishing practice. One of the former directors of TRACES and the supervisor of
numerous theses explained that the specific fieldwork logics (d.h., pairing mixed methods)
definitely characterizes archaeological work:

What I’ve always loved about archaeology is that you are right at the confluence
between literature and history, to me, history is part of literature, a particular form of
literature and life and natural sciences, geology archaeozoology, Geschichte, alle
mixed up and so, it’s fascinating because you deal with everything, historians love it,
it’s their calling (…), we do make everything by ourselves, our documents, field, mate-
rial, Objekte, there are no instructions for us, an object is found and we have to invent our
instruction manual, you experience such joy when you find, propose interpretations,
nevertheless always based on scientific reasoning.

daher, archaeology is not “instrumental” like astrophysics (in this discipline, platforms
require an accurate distribution of tasks), but it conjures up the “do-it-yourself” practice iden-
tified by Claude Lévi-Strauss to single out practices combining material, Methoden, and hetero-
geneous approaches (Lévi-Strauss, 1966).

Even if mathematization plays an increasing part in economics, copublishing seems to rely
on common research work based on models mastered by some teams made up of two or three
Menschen. This means that scientific citations reinforce relationships; hence committee member-
ship invitations are then “taken for granted” by the researchers involved as part of their scien-
tific exchanges.

About a committee member, Bruno, a CNRS research director told us:

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

I’ve known him since … So, I first met X, I didn’t know him before my thesis, he con-
tacted me on my return back to Paris, Also, I’d say I’ve known him since about 89 … He
started inviting me here, I remember coming here for the official opening, he had invited
me to the opening ceremony of the Industrial Economics Institute and, Vor, to one or
two thesis defenses at that time when you used to put on a toque, etc … For thesis com-
mittees … we’ve had quite a few exchanges, we used to discuss a lot, but we have never
written together, we had one or two projects of articles together but we never did it …

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

The proportion of PhD students’ copublications with committee members is extremely

variable and the same applies to their copublications with thesis supervisors.

To sum up, systematic publishing in astrophysics must be interpreted in the light of the
compulsory contract compelling PhD students to publish in order to be able to defend their
These (which is not the case for the archaeologists and economists we studied) and of the more
collaborative nature of space projects.

4. THE INVISIBLE COMMUNITIES SURROUNDING THE THESIS

By applying social network analysis to our data, we first constructed and analyzed
comembership and next, stronger networks associating both comembership and

Quantitative Science Studies

1056

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

copublications, from the point of view of their structural characteristics (density, configuration,
average distance).

The professional relationships between scientists within their department are multiple; Das
is to say, they involve several types of collaborations, from participating in projects and sharing
courses to copublishing, committee membership, usw. In diesem Artikel, the method used consists
in superimposing comembership in the same committee and copublishing collaborations.

The network analysis of comembership—whichever network involved—reveals that the
structure of these communities almost match, at times, the structure of the department (In
the case of the Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology or of TRACES), at times that of the
doctoral School (in the case of economics). They quite systematically reflect the departmental
teams and it is to be noted that very few committees are made up with members from different
teams.

4.1. Comembership Networks and Copublishing Networks

We have successively analyzed the three disciplines in the three Toulouse departments: astro-
Physik, archaeology, and economics. For each discipline, committee comembership comes
Erste, followed by that of comembership paired with copublishing. Dealing with comembership
Netzwerke, the tie taken into account is “X and Y share the same jury.” This has nothing to do
with the nature of the social relationships that may exist between the two members: One might
have supervised the other, one might be the latter’s departmental colleague, they might know
each other very well and be friends, usw. Andererseits, the second tie points to strong re-
lationships of shared research work intensified by committee membership.

4.1.1. Astrophysics

The comembership network in astrophysics (Figur 1) displays three components around three
researchers ( Von Balmoos, Rème, and Walters) among which the first two are structurally
equivalent and the most central. The third one is less dense. One can make out an axis of
oblique symmetry going through two researchers ( Walters and Le Quéau), the most central
researchers after the first two.

When comembership and copublishing networks in astrophysics are overlaid (Figur 2), Die
previous structure remains salient, as if the extra “copublishing with” relation did not appear
as a strong constraint: It merely intensifies the previous type of collaboration.

The comembership and copublishing network in astrophysics (Figur 2) shows strong
homogeneity of specialities in the formation of the candidates’ publishing environment.
Team specialities and their themes of study are key elements and tend to isolate
copublishers from the same department.

This network contains 152 members and 609 ties and only one component, which is rather
striking: All the Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology committee members are indirectly
interconnected. The network density is 5.31% and the average distance between two mem-
bers is 3.13, which is rather weak (Tisch 4).

Two supervisors in the network stand out: Henri Rème and Peter Von Ballmoos, who are
respectively connected with 29% Und 28% of the sample (d.h., 44 Und 43 persons) and who
are not only thesis supervisors but also team leaders in the Institute in Astrophysics and
Planetology department. The other professors are interconnected with between 3% Und
15% of the sample. Rème and Von Ballmoos also hold the most intermediary positions in
the network (43% of the network paths go through von Ballmoos and 29% through Rème).

Quantitative Science Studies

1057

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

Figur 1. Comembership in astrophysics.

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

It may be noted that these two professors participate in the highest number of committees: 10
for Rème and eight for Von Ballmoos.

To avoid overemphasizing comembership ties that might prove occasional, and hence
rather weak, it is necessary to raise the selection threshold up to comembership at several
committees. In Abbildung 3, the tie is “X shares several thesis committees with Y.” The number
of ties greatly decreases, down to a maximum of three common committees for two professors.
The professors are thus rarely associated more than once.

The network is made up of six components away from a larger group structured around 13

other researchers.

By only keeping the ties with Rème and Von Ballmoos (Figur 4), only those professors
sharing comembership with at least one of the two are selected: They are exactly 79 out of
149, which amounts to 53% of the total. Henri Rème chaired nine juries out of all these theses
and supervised a thesis only once. Peter Von Ballmoos also chaired five committees, super-
vised two theses and, was only once a simple member. They are definitely far ahead of the
other members and they also participated in the greatest number of thesis committees.

In the course of an interview with one of the Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology team
Führer (Henri Rème), he told us that he did not share any collaboration with Van Ballmoos, als

Quantitative Science Studies

1058

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

Figur 2. Committee comembership and copublishing network in astrophysics.

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

Tisch 4.

Comparative characteristics of the two types of networks in the three disciplines

Discipline
Comembership network

Astrophysics
34 theses
152 members

Archaelogy
11 theses
85 members

Economics
65 theses
163 members

609 Krawatten

280 Krawatten

1,180 Krawatten

density = 5.31%

density = 7.84%

density = 4.5%

mean distance = 3.13

mean distance = 2.61

mean distance = 2.9

Comembership network and
copublications network

227 Krawatten

67 Krawatten

168 Krawatten

density = 2%

density = 1.88%

density = 0.7%

mean distance = 5.5

mean distance = 2.63

mean distance = 4.17

Share of common relations between

37%

32%

14.23%

the two networks

Quantitative Science Studies

1059

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

Figur 3. Network of committee comembership on a minimum of two thesis committees in astrophysics.

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

they worked on “completely different subjects.” He added: “Peter is my friend, but there is no
reason for publishing together”6. Van Ballmoos works in the field of high-energy astrophysics
while Rème works on interactions in the upper atmosphere.

When copublishing criteria are included, the two subgraphs come apart: most of the ties
remain, but it is to be noted that none of the eight professors on the same thesis committees
as Rème and Von Ballmoos copublished with the two of them. Among the eight, five
copublished with Rème and three did not publish with either. One can see that Rème
seems to have copublished with the highest number of researchers.

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

4.1.2. Archaeology

In the case of thesis defense comembership (Figur 5), each committee displays a minimum of
three ties. The network density (that is to say the total number of possible ties divided by the
total number of actual ties) Ist 7.84% (280 ties for 85 members). The average distance is 2.61
(d.h., going from one member to another requires an average of 2.61 intermediaries). It can also
be observed that a group of five people (Senac, Rendu, Cursente, Barraud, and Bolos) is cut off
from the rest of the committees. It means that this group of five researchers participated on the

6 Interview with Henri Rème, Juni 22, 2011.

Quantitative Science Studies

1060

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

Figur 4. Graph of the comembership ties of the two most central committee members.

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

same committee, but none of them participated on another committee with one of the other
sample members.

It is no surprise that Yvan Pailler and Michel Barbaza hold the most central position, as both
of them are supervisors and participated in the greatest number of committees, jeweils 10
and six. During an interview with Michel Barbaza (Marsch 9, 2017), he wondered at the ties
existing with the group of researchers Badillo, Perrot, Helly, and Ferjaoui, whose names he did
not know. Und doch, this set connects the two bottom and top subcomponents of the network.
This observation calls for caution: Some relationships between committee members happen to
be circumstantial and temporary. All the ties displayed do not necessary imply strong epistemic
Beteiligung. They may also be the result of incidental opportunities: A committee member
may represent a circumstantial compromise.

The network of stronger ties between committee members (Figur 6) actually provides three

isolated and not very dense components around three central professors from TRACES.

It should be noted that comembership of at least two thesis committees in archaeology is
much more occasional, as it leaves us with 21 Krawatten, das ist 0.6% density. The maximum number
of common committees for two members is three. The new network includes three compo-
nents around three main TRACES professors: Barbaza, Pailler, and Sablayrolles.

Quantitative Science Studies

1061

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

Figur 5. Committee comembership network in archaeology.

When one of them was asked what accounts for his choice of inviting this or that colleague

to a thesis committee, he answered that

the teaching or research staff, the pool (for thesis committees) is rather limited, über alles
at that time of the year, you are bound to know everybody, we’ve got great relationships
with Paris I, Bordeaux, with Aix-en-Provence, even though things are less smooth with
the latter, we enjoy tight social, friendly, tactical and scientific relationships, Natürlich,
one should try …, whenever possible, you know, to coordinate so that it doesn’t look
like convenience committees that we’d arrange together, it may be the case, back then it
did happen, it’s more difficult now, back then you just did whatever you wanted to do
with theses, when I think of all the constraints we have today.

That was how he used many “strategies,” more particularly to ensure the stability of the
department’s relationships with “those in Paris” and with the Ministère de la Culture.
Concerning more specifically thesis committees and their composition, he finally listed four
criteria without prioritizing them: He first justified invitations by referring to the researcher’s
expertise and specialization. He next mentioned strong budgetary constraints forcing him to
finalize juries by resorting to “cheap people” from Bordeaux, Carcassonne, or Toulouse (Sei-
cause the train ticket is cheaper to come from these surrounding places than from Paris). Er
third pointed to some “polite invitations” for Spanish researchers. Last of all, he remarked that
working relationships with Paris had undergone some changes: “Before, Toulouse was too

Quantitative Science Studies

1062

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

Figur 6. Network of comembership on at least two thesis committees in archaeology.

small to be attractive and those in Paris were rather reluctant to move, whereas provincials
would more easily go Paris; now things have slightly changed.”

Zusamenfassend, finding the right sort of arrangement between keeping up relationships, holding up
scientific requirements, and preserving friendships is the thesis supervisor’s main task in ensur-
ing a positive defense in archaeology. The challenge consists in holding together heteroge-
neous logics (d.h., keeping or developing personal relationships may stand in contradiction
with requiring the appropriate scientific level), while taking into account the whole set of in-
stitutional, politisch, personal, and epistemic constraints.

The comembership and copublication network in archaeology (Figur 7) zeigt, dass 35
members had never copublished with any other member of the same committee. The network
only displays 67 Krawatten, which corresponds to 1.88% density. Comembership within the same
committee is represented by 280 Krawatten. daher, this means that 32% of comembership ties
within the same committee are also copublishing ties. The average distance is 2.63.

4.1.3. Economics

Concerning comembership of a thesis defense in economics (Figur 8), each member has at
least two ties. Es gibt 163 members and 1,180 Krawatten. Somit, density is 4.5%. The average
distance is 2.9, which means that going from one member to another implies an average of 2.9
intermediaries.

Quantitative Science Studies

1063

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

Figur 7. Committee comembership and copublication network in archaeology.

The network of comembership on at least two thesis committees in economics (Figur 9)
displays those researchers who attended several thesis committees (at least two) together. Es ist
no surprise to see that quite a number of ties have vanished. The network density is no more
als 0.6% (152 Krawatten) and three components stand out, the main one being around Jean Tirole
but with a rather low local density.

When copublication and comembership at a thesis defense in economics are paired up
(Figur 10), there are far fewer ties than in the comembership network only. The network den-
sity is 0.7% (d.h., 168 Krawatten), whereas the comembership network has 1,180, which means only
14% of the ties remain in the copublishing network. The average distance is 4.17.

A series of eight interviews conducted in 2013 with some of the economists in our corpus
helped specify the part played by copublishing between committee members and PhD students7.
These interviews throw some light on their own career path (These, post-doc, successive po-
Standorte, usw), on research training practices through supervising theses, and on copublishing
with PhD students. Regarding copublishing between supervisors and PhD students, three re-
curring practices stand out.

Erste, it is usual that each thesis chapter should be a version of an article already published,
sometimes with the supervisor or with another department member. The thesis therefore

7 These interviews were carried out by Author 1 as part of a research program, funded by the Agence
Nationale de la Recherche, conducted by Béatrice Milard, zwischen 2012 Und 2015, studying citations of
scientific articles (Milard, 2014).

Quantitative Science Studies

1064

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

Figur 8. Committee comembership network in economics.

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

condenses publishing practices. Zweite, it is common practice to provide PhD students
worth encouraging with a 1-year research contract to help them valorize their thesis into an
article that will also be coauthored by their supervisor. Und doch, supervisor-PhD student
copublishing is not systematic and appears to depend on the supervisor’s involvement in
the thesis. Zum Beispiel, Alban explained that the work he shared with one of his PhD students
consisted in sharing tasks and competences: They were exploring a research area little stud-
ied so far (the economics of water resources), which required devising new methods. Das
involvement in concrete scientific work is also advocated by Michel as the usual norm.
Talking about an article cowritten with a PhD student, he said that

in economics, supervision is usually much more than merely brainstorming ideas. Es ist
actually real collaboration. Not for all the chapters, you hope that the student will be fully
autonomous for a number of chapters, Aber, it’s true that, at the beginning, or with some
Kapitel, it is quite common to see both of them together, the professor working really
hart, as much as the student to try and train her/him … This is what happened then.

The educational dimension adds to the original scientific work. It is about learning to be a

researcher by coworking with one’s supervisor.

Quantitative Science Studies

1065

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

Figur 9. Network of comembership on, mindestens, two thesis committees in economics.

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

Last of all, all these interviews demonstrated that the economists shared the same approach to
supervision as facilitating students’ entry into the academic field as well as a time for acquiring
research rules (article format, growing generalization, theorization, usw).

Talking about supervision relationships, a researcher referred to “filial” bonds between re-
searchers and PhD students. He explicitly developed this idea when alluding to an article
cowritten with two other colleagues (Herbert and Luigi):

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

There is a kind of lineage in connection with the thesis. Luigi was Herbert’s PhD, Herbert
was Pierre’s PhD student and I was nobody’s PhD student in the group. Luigi is
Colombian, he defended his thesis here, he is now a professor, or the equivalent of
assistant professor in Bogota, in Colombia, and back then he would often come back
to Toulouse to carry on everything he had started here.

If there is no compulsory lineage in economics, like in astrophysics, the logic of
copublishing remains fundamental to encourage an early career. This implies that the super-
visor has noticed the graduate’s potential qualities and has somehow forecast her or his future
as a researcher. But this is not systematic, as opposed to what happens in astrophysics, Wo
writing a thesis necessarily implies being committed to publishing—in most cases with the
supervisor in charge of the research project.

Quantitative Science Studies

1066

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

Figur 10. Copublication and committee comembership network in economics.

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

4.2. Comparing Networks

Comembership and copublishing networks reveal two forms of socioepistemic relationships.
Comembership indicates loose relatedness and extended affinities. Copublishing signals close
relationships and shared practices, Fächer, themes, and issues. In our analysis of the way
committees participate in developing a form of sociability, it is necessary to grasp the specific
characteristics of these two types of networks in the three disciplines.

The results from comembership networks show that density is higher in archaeology than in
the other disciplines; that is to say, concentration is more important or fewer committees are
more frequent. Besides, in archaeology, the average distance between two members is shorter,
which means that it is a “smaller world” in which a great number of researchers have been
invited to the same thesis committee. In astrophysics, density is lower but average distance is
higher: The scientific community validating theses is less concentrated. The most scattered
discipline is economics, but it is also the one with the greatest number of thesis committees.
But even in this latter discipline, the average distance of 2.9 between two members remains
short.

As for comembership and copublishing networks, they ought to be analyzed with respect to
the evolution of indicators as compared to the first networks. Economics has lost a greater

Quantitative Science Studies

1067

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

number of ties than the other two (twice as many as astrophysics and archaeology) und das
result is corroborated by the very low number of common ties between the two types of net-
funktioniert. That is to say, committee comembership is more frequent than copublishing between
members of the same committee. Both networks in astrophysics display the greatest similarity.
Comembership reinforces copublishing. Archaeology stands in between the other two disci-
plinary practices.

daher, comembership networks and copublishing networks single out disciplinary prac-
tices: The lack of personal connections in economics (d.h., comembership and copublishing
hardly overlap, much less than in the other two disciplines) expresses some form of disciplin-
ary individualism. Im Gegensatz, in astrophysics, which is based almost exclusively on vast
projects requiring instruments that mobilize a great number of researchers, comembership
and copublishing necessarily tend to tighten up.

5. CONCLUSION

Identifying how committee sociability is constructed enables us to single out some specific
academic patterns of conduct when examining members’ comembership and copublishing
practices with one another and with supervised PhD students.

We note first that disciplinary identities (despite some clear convergences) remain very
strong. Copublishing practices (unavoidable in astrophysics, less frequent in archaeology
and economics) between PhD students and committee members bring to light publishing prac-
tices reflecting concrete scientific practices: Collaborative work (dominant in astrophysics and
in archaeology) should not be mistaken as some possible (or hypothetical) move of historical
or social sciences towards hard sciences. Publishing practices are first and foremost deter-
mined by the specificity of research methods (project work, task sharing, sequencing of activ-
ities, and socioepistemic hierarchies).

The clear thematic structuring definitely turns resources into those competences that com-
mittee organizers will request: Members are actually selected from the largely identified stock
of interpersonal relationships already secured by some possible copublications. These two ac-
tivities do not overlap as much in economics, as this discipline has only a few or very few
collaborative research practices. Research in astrophysics is centered on vast programs
and massive instruments, which at least partly accounts for the relative scientific proximity
of committee members. Although the trend is less so in archaeology, collaborative fieldwork
is a rallying factor which then plays a unifying role for thesis defenses.

In our study, committees stand (even defectively) not only for networks of interpersonal
relationships achieved through the participation in an academic ritual of integration, but also
for the working communities built up by disciplines.

Endlich, the peer-making process characterized here is shaped by setups that are specific to
each discipline. Astrophysics, as practiced at the Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology,
puts copublishing and, more generally, research team work at the very core of scientific ac-
tivities dedicated to instruments (most often to satellites, massive platforms requiring numerous
collaborations). Economics—above all at the highly mathematized Toulouse doctoral school
—relies on a repeated methodology in the training process experienced during the thesis,
which means that the collaborative dimension is less important. zuletzt, in archaeology, welche
requires collaborative fieldwork, copublishing is therefore quite common.

We also propose two further consequences of this network approach for the delicate phase

of training for article writing and publishing via one’s PhD.

Quantitative Science Studies

1068

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

Einerseits, the very heuristic nature of networks can bring to light some other ele-
ments structuring the scientific world, which other approaches cannot reveal. From this par-
ticular methodological perspective, our work is the continuation of other contemporary
research using network analysis in science studies (Baccini, Barabesi et al., 2020; Milard,
2014, Zum Beispiel). By combining “bibliometric data” and comembership and copublishing
network analysis, our method reveals both the relationships that are in the background of the
composition of thesis committees and also reveals the “mentors’” relationships to the PhD stu-
dents that they supervise or whose final research work they assess. In der Tat, most studies do not
highlight the social setup at work behind either the formation of committees or the work of
writing. Hier, the social setup distinctly pertaining to each discipline can be clearly identified
as an indicator of the different disciplinary practices, more or less collaborative and more or
less “guiding” for PhD students.

Andererseits, the written material (theses and articles) allows us to situate the con-
struction phase of a committee by exposing, just like in the case of citations (Milard, 2014),
imprints of social relationships. Agreements passed between individuals, working relationships
developed, and scientific coalition engaged, as well as the whole training involvement
provided to young candidates, are all perceptible in the various ways of coauthoring or of
involving coauthors.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Three students from the Statistics Institute (IUP de Statistique) of Paul Sabatier University car-
ried out statistical data processing: Adrien Toulllier, Rémy Courrège, and Marine Issertes. Wir
are very grateful to them.

FUNDING INFORMATION

The inquiry was supported by the LabEx (Laboratoire d’Excellence) SMS (Sciences des
Mondes Sociaux), Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès.

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

2
3
1
0
4
8
1
9
7
0
8
1
3
Q
S
S
_
A
_
0
0
1
4
3
P
D

DATA AVAILABILITY

The coauthorship and PhD thesis committees data that support the findings of this study are
available in the GitHub repository https://github.com/ Marion-Mai/peer-making with the
Zenodo identifier https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4966081. All personal data (PhD students’
and committee members’ names, plus their publications’ and PhD theses’ titles) are available
from Marion Maisonobe upon reasonable request.

These data have been collected by and under the supervision of Marie-Pierre Bès.

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

VERWEISE

Baccini, A., Barabesi, L., Khelfaoui, M., & Gingras, Y. (2020).
Intellectual and social similarity among scholarly journals: Ein
exploratory comparison of the networks of editors, authors, Und
co-citations. Quantitative Science Studies, 1(1), 277–289. https://
doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00006

Bourdieu, P. (1975). La spécificité du champ scientifique et les con-
ditions sociales du progrès de la raison. Sociologie et Sociétés,
7(1), 91–118. https://doi.org/10.7202/001089ar

Bourdieu, P. (1984). Homo academicus. Éditions de Minuit.
Breimer, L. H., & Leksell, J. (2011). Longitudinal and cross-sectional
study of registered nurses in Sweden who undertake a PhD showing
that nurses continue to publish in English after their PhD but male

nurses are more productive than female nurses. Scientometrics,
87(2), 337–345. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0325-2
Breimer, L. H., & Nilsson, T. K. (2010). A longitudinal and cross-
sectional study of Swedish biomedical PhD processes 1991–2009
with emphasis on international and gender aspects. Scientometrics,
85, 401–414. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0227-3

Breimer, L. H., & Nilsson, T. K. (2014). Considerations for appointing
an external examiner of a PhD in the biomedical sciences in
Schweden: A questionnaire-based survey. Scientometrics, 98(3),
2039–2049. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-013-1150-1

Chariker, J. H., Zhang, Y., Pani, J. R., & Rouchka, E. C. (2017).
Identification of successful mentoring communities using

Quantitative Science Studies

1069

The interconnections between PhD thesis committee membership and copublishing

network-based analysis of mentor–mentee relationships across
Nobel laureates. Scientometrics, 111(3), 1733–1749. https://doi
.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2364-4, PubMed: 28596628

Donner, P. (2020). A validation of coauthorship credit models with em-
pirical data from the contributions of PhD candidates. Quantitative
Science Studies, 1(2), 551–564. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00048
Ehrenberg, R. G., Zuckerman, H., Groen, J. A., & Brucker, S. M. (2010).
Educating scholars. Doctoral education in humanities. Princeton
Universitätsverlag. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400831524

Fonseca, L., Vellosi, S., Wofchuk, S., & Meiss, L. von (1998). Der
relationship between advisors and students. Scientometrics, 41(3),
299–312. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02459047

Gingras Y. (1991). Physics and the rise of scientific research in

Kanada. McGill-Queens University Press.

Godechot, Ö. (2016). The chance of influence: A natural experiment
on the role of social capital in faculty recruitment. Social Networks,
46, 60–75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2016.02.002

Hagstrom, W. Ö. (1964). Anomy in scientific communities. Sozial

Problems, 12(2), 186–195. https://doi.org/10.2307/798981
Hagstrom, W. Ö. (1965). The scientific community. Basic Books.
Katz, J. S., & Martin, B. R. (1997). What is research collaboration?
Research Policy, 26(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0048
-7333(96)00917-1

Knorr Cetina, K. (1999). Epistemic cultures: How the sciences make

Wissen. Harvard University Press.

Kretschmer, H. (1994). Coauthorship networks of invisible colleges
and institutionalized communities. Scientometrics, 30(1), 363–369.
https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02017234

Larivière, V. (2012). On the shoulders of students? The contribution of
PhD students to the advancement of knowledge. Scientometrics,
90(2), 463–481. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-011-0495-6
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1966). The savage mind. University of Chicago Press.
Leydesdorff, L., Ràfols, ICH., & Milojevic(cid:1), S. (2020). Bridging the divide
between qualitative and quantitative science studies. Quantitative
Science Studies, 1(3), 918–926. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_e_00061
Milard, B. (2014). The social circles behind scientific references:
relationships between citing and cited authors in chemistry pub-
lications. Journal of the American Society for Information Science
and Technology, 65(12), 2459–2468. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi
.23149

Milard B., & Tanguy L. (2018). Citations in scientific texts: Do social
Relations matter? Journal of the Association for Information Science
and Technology, 69(11), 1380–1395. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi
.24061

Moody, J. (2004). The structure of a social science: Disciplinary co-
hesion from 1963 Zu 1999. American Sociological Review, 69(2),
213–238. https://doi.org/10.1177/000312240406900204

Millett, C. M., & Nettles, M. T. (2006). Expanding and cultivating
the Hispanic STEM doctoral workforce: Research on doctoral
student experiences. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 5(3),
258–287. https://doi.org/10.1177/1538192706287916

Mullins, N. C. (1972). The development of a scientific speciality:
The phage group and the origins of molecular and the origins
of molecular biology. Minerva, 10(1), 51–82. https://doi.org/10
.1007/BF01881390

Newman, M. E. J. (2001). The structure of scientific collaboration
Netzwerke. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of
the United States of America, 98(2), 404–409. https://doi.org/10
.1073/pnas.98.2.404, PubMed: 11149952

Newman, M. E. J. (2004). Coauthorship networks and patters of sci-
entific collaboration. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America, 101(suppl. 1), 5200–5205.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0307545100, PubMed: 14745042
Pezzoni, M., Mairesse, J., Stepha, P., & Lane, J. (2016). Gender and
the publication output of graduate students: A case study. PLOS
ONE, 11(1), e0145146. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone
.0145146, PubMed: 26760776

Pontille D. (2003). Authorship practices and institutional contexts
in sociology: Elements for a comparison of the United States
and France. Wissenschaft, Technologie & Human Values, 28(2),
217–243. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243902250905

Renisio, Y., & Zamith, P. (2015). Proximités épistémologiques et
stratégies professionnelles. Qualifier l’interdisciplinarité au
CNU, 2005–2013. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales,
210, 28–39. https://doi.org/10.3917/arss.210.0028

Shinn, T. (1998). Instrument hierarchies: Laboratories, industry and
divisions of labour. In I. Löwy & J.-P. Gaudellier (Hrsg.), The invis-
ible industrialist: Manufactures and the construction of scientific
Wissen (S. 270–279). Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007
/978-1-349-26443-8_4

Verschueren, P. (2016). Homo Academicu Reticulatus: Le doctorat
d’état et les recompositions des disciplines scientifiques après la
guerre mondiale. Hypothèses, 19, 199–210. https://doi.org/10
.3917/hyp.151.0199

Watt, J. (2012). To publish or not to publish before submission?
Considerations for doctoral students and supervisors. Creative
Education, 3(6A), 1101–1107. https://doi.org/10.4236/ce.2012
.326165

Quantitative Science Studies

1070

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u
Q
S
S
/
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D