This is an invited paper with two published discussions and the reply of the authors in the journal Quality &Quantity. The complete longitudinal coauthorship networks for four research disciplines (biotechnology, mathematics, physics and sociology) for 1986–2005 was compared.The complete bibliographies of all researchers registered at the national Slovene Research Agency were analyzed. The number of coauthored publications grew much faster than solo authored productions, especially after independence in 1991 and the integration of Slovenian science into broader EU systems. Using blockmodeling, it is shown how coauthorship structures change in all disciplines. The most frequent form was a core-periphery structure with multiple simple cores with intense co-authorship collaboration, a periphery with no co-authorship collaboration and a semi-periphery with some non-systematic collaborations within scientific discipline. Two ‘lab’ fields, biotechnology and physics, have larger semi-peripheries than peripheries. The reverse holds for mathematics and sociology, two ‘office’ disciplines.
COBISS.SI-ID: 30291037