| Abstract: |
The affiliation to an institution provides prestige and identity to
researchers and determines access to resources and infrastructure.
Institutions in turn seek to affiliate researchers to secure their knowledge
and skills, benefiting the research conducted within these institutions and
their position in national and international rankings. This study documents
the phenomenon of researchers having multiple affiliations and discusses
potential causes and consequences. We analyze affiliation information of 8.5M
authors from 40 countries, who published 8.9M scientific articles in 14
disciplines since 1996. We find that multiple affiliations occur both within
countries as well as across borders, and that more than 60% are within the
academic research sector. The share of authors with multiple affiliations
increased substantially over the past two decades and particularly since the
mid-2000s. The increase is particularly pronounced in countries whose funding
structures became more competitive. The rise of multiple affiliations points
to fundamental changes in the organisation of science and challenges our
measurements of where scientific activity takes place. |