I was born in 1947 and I have studied psychology at Humboldt University of Berlin
(Dipl.-psych.) and in 1975 I received my doctorate (Dr. oec.) at the University
of Economics, Berlin-Karlshorst.
In 1986 I defended my postdoctoral thesis (Dr.sc.phil.) at the Academy of Sciences
of the former German Democratic Republic. In 1996 this postdoctoral qualification
was confirmed by the Free University and since then I have been appointed as
a private lecturer (PD), Germany.
On April 5, 2001, in my function as a postdoctorally qualified private lecturer,
I was appointed as Honorary Professor by Henan Normal University, Xinxiang,
China, an honourable distinction that was bestowed by this University upon only
a very few high-ranking scientists, among them on the Nobel-prize winner J.
Georg Bednorz.
My work deals with reflections of social structures in co-authorship and citation networks by structure measures, modelling of collaboration systems and theory (Continuation of Lotka´s law on the 3rd dimension), development and change of dynamic social structures in sciences over several centuries. I have studied collaboration processes during the last 25 years both from the viewpoints of bibliometrics, webometrics and socio-psychology. My interests focus on different aspects of similarity and dissimilarity of collaborators with respect to critical variables such as productivity, gender, research (problem) areas, disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and other themes.
As a science author in the field
of quantitative science research and socio-psychology, I have since emerged
with a wide range of international contributions to this field. A great deal
of publications in current literatures, among them some 70 articles in international
journals and anthologies and about 18 national ones, four articles in Chinese
language, 10 anthologies as editor, have established my international
recognition.
I was personally invited by the Guest Editor of the “Special Issue on
Theory” of the American journal “Library Trends” for contribution
of my theoretical approach to be published in April 2002, see publication list.
I have published some of my articles in co-authorship with Donald deB. Beaver
(USA), Liang Liming (China), Guo Yongzheng (China), Ramesh Kundra (India),
Brian
Mohan Gupta (India), Ronald Rousseau (Belgium) and I have published proceedings
in my function as co-editor together with Frank Havemann (BRD), Roland Wagner-Döbler
(BRD) Ramesh Kundra (India), Yogendra Singh (India), Shabahat Hussain (India)
and Wolfgang Glänzel
(Belgium, Germany, Hungary).
My projects and conferences have so far been sponsored by contributions from different countries, among others by the Technology Foundation Utrecht (The Netherlands), the Eugene Garfield Foundation Philadelphia (USA), the National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies, New Delhi (India), the Internet Firm ALTUS Media AG, by arrangement, within the framework of DFG/NSFC-Agreements (DFG-Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, NSFC-National Natural Science Foundation of China) as well as by the DFG/INSA-Agreements (INSA-Indian National Science Academy). My present project is supported by a grant from the Common Basis for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators part of the Improving Human Research Potential specific programme of the Fifth Framework for Research and Technological Development of the European Commission. It is part of the WISER project (Web indicators for scientific, technological and innovation research) (Contract HPV2-CT-2002-00015).
In my capacity as a foundation member, board member and first President of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics (I.S.S.I.) and as an Associate Editor of the international journal “Scientometrics”, I was part of the four internationally leading scientists, who were invited to the 1998-Beijing-held Seminar of Quantitative Evaluation of R&D at universities and colleges and to the Fifth All-China Annual Meeting of Scientometrics and Informetrics.
Moreover, I officiated as an active member on the International Program Committee of the biennial World Conferences held in Chicago (USA), Jerusalem (Israel), Colima (Mexico), Sydney (Australia), Beijing (China) and Stockholm (Sweden). In addition, I was invited to take the chair of one of the sessions each.
In my capacity as a keynote speaker I was several times invited at international conferences, among them at the Chinese Universities of Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Panyu and Dalian, at the Center for International Research & Collaboration, Tehran (Iran) or at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (India).
In 2000 I have established together with Liang Liming (China) and Ramesh Kundra (India) an global interdisciplinary research network to focus on the nature of “Collaboration in Science and in Technology-COLLNET” with about 65 principal investigators from 21 countries. I hosted its first international Meeting in September 2000 in Berlin. This international network of scholars has since held four other Meetings – the second in New Delhi (India), the third in Sydney (Australia) as part of the 8th ISSI International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics, the fourth in Beijing (China) as part of the 9th ISSI International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics, the fifth in Roorkee (India) as part of the International Workshop on Webometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics. The sixth was been held in Stockholm (Sweden) in 2005 as part of the 10th ISSI International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics.
A new journal is founded in August 2004 entitled "Journal of Information Management and Scientometrics (Incorporating the COLLNET Journal)". I'm appointed as Associate Editor.