Identifying Researchers’ Publication Strategies by Clustering Publication and Impact Data

Identifying strategies for researchers has been a problem investigated from different perspectives, such as choosing research topics or the effect of partner selection. Its importance lies in the effect these choices have in the long term and the importance of taking them into account at the beginning of the scientific career. This study aims to identify publication strategies through behavioral observations for researchers belonging to the engineering area. We analyzed 3,156 researchers affiliated to Mexican National Researchers System with publication data from 2007 to 2016. Publication strategies are defined as a combination of two-year productivity and collaboration indicators, and their success is reflected in terms of citations received in a three-year time window. Using clustering techniques, we identified differentiated patterns aligned with a given citation level. As a result of our case study, we identified low-impact and high-impact publication strategies used by Mexican researchers, which in turn can be used for designing long-term strategies for researchers. Our methodology can be used to discover publication strategies in other areas and geographical regions.