A new territory and its pioneer: opening up a dominant research stream for a translational research area

• Published in: Scientometrics 2020-11, Vol.125 (2), p.1213-1228
• Main Authors: Liu, Yuxian, Biskup, Ewelina, Wang, Yueqian, Cai, Fengfeng, Zhang, Xiaoyan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Clustering; Computer Science; ErbB-2 protein; Information processing; Information Storage and Retrieval; Library Science; Links; Translation
• ISSN: 0138-9130; 1588-2861
• DOI: 10.1007/s11192-020-03638-8

An academic pioneer makes many trials to find relations and results that were unknown before. The verified relations and repeatable results the pioneer finds guide followers to create a new subject area. We investigated how a pioneer opened up a research stream for a translational research area by systemic mapping and clustering of all available publications on Her-2 and of this pioneer’s work. Characteristics of clusters in both maps were largely similar, but we also identified differences, indicating that the pioneer opened a dominant research stream for the whole area. We show how different clusters representing TR stages took shape. Strong links and the terms connected by these strong links made it possible to deduce the roles of these clusters in the translational process. The strong links between clusters build a broad and solid bridge between the clusters in the pioneer’s term map, realizing the translational process. We discuss and then conclude that verified relations and repeatable results strengthen links between terms that reflect main relations found by the pioneer. Further investigations of the relations between linkage strength and the translational process might lead to interesting information about the process of translational research.