16.3.2 Number of authors

This metric calculates the average number of co-authors for the academics entire body of work by dividing the total number of authors by the total number of papers. As is readily apparent from Figure 9, there is a fairly substantial difference between the Sciences and the Social Sciences and Humanities.

Figure 9: Average number of authors per paper in different disciplines

In the Sciences, papers on average have 3 authors (i.e. 2 co-authors), whilst in the Social Sciences and Humanities papers on average only have 1.6 authors (i.e. 0.6 co-author). However, there are substantial differences even within these broader categories. The Computer Scientist on average only has 1.5 co-author, whilst the Cell Biologist on average has nearly three co-authors. The Cinema Studies academic publishes virtually only single-authored work, having only 0.1 co-author on average, whilst the Linguist and the Political Scientist on average have nearly 1 co-author.