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.
I’m editor/co-editor of 13 conference proceedings and I have published rather 100 peer reviewed articles or contributions in national and international journals or monographs, several non-peer reviewed publications. Among them four articles in Chinese language and one in Russian.
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 Eugene Garfield (USA), Donald deB. Beaver (USA), Liang Liming (China), Guo Yongzheng (China), Liu Zeyuan (China), Pang Jie (China), Guo Hanning (China), Ramesh Kundra (India), Brian Mohan Gupta (India), Sujit Bhattacharya (India), N.K Wadhwa (India), Ronald Rousseau (Belgium), Leo Egghe (Belgium).
Further, I was acting as Editor (or Co-Editor, respectively) of proceedings together with Frank Havemann (BRD), Roland Wagner-Döbler (BRD) Ramesh Kundra (India), Yogendra Singh (India), Shabahat Hussain (India) and Wolfgang Glänzel (Belgium, Germany, Hungary).
I was working as organizer or program chair of 16 international conferences or workshops in the area of webometrics, scientometrics and informetrics, collaboration in science and in technology, among them 13 COLLNET Meetings/Conferences
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), especially the international conferences by Elsevier, Springer and Thompson Reuters. One of the projects was 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) and another one by the 7th Framework Program by the European Commission, SIS-2010-1.3.3.1. Project full title: "Academic Careers Understood through Measurement and Norms ", Project acronym: ACUMEN.
I’m appointed as Visiting Professor at the Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China in 2001 and I was employed from 2004-2009 as “Sea-sky Scholar” privileged Professor at the Dalian University of Technology, China.
I was working as teacher especially in Dalian and acting as supervisor of several Chinese PhD students. Furthermore, I was teaching at the Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, China and appointed in 2011 as Honorary Professor at the Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, China.
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 of I.S.S.I. held in Chicago (USA), Jerusalem (Israel), Colima (Mexico), Sydney (Australia), Beijing (China), Stockholm (Sweden), Madrid (Spain), Rio de Janeiro (Brazilia) and Durban (South Africa).
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 (Today about 80 members from 25 countries). I’m acting as co-ordinator of COLLNET since 2000. Since that time there have been 10 meetings/conferences. 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 and the International Workshop on Webometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics and the 7th COLLNET Meeting was been held in Nancy, France, in May 2006. The Third International Conference on Webometrics, Informetrics, Scientometrics and Science and Society & Eighth COLLNET Meeting took place in New Delhi, India, in March 2007 (http://www.collnet-delhi.de), the Fourth International Conference on Webometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics & Ninth COLLNET Meeting in Berlin, Germany in July 2008 (http://www.collnet-berlin.de) and the Fifth International Conference on Webometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics & Tenth COLLNET Meeting in Dalian, China, in September 2009 (http://www.wiselab.cn/), the 6th International Conference on Webometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics & 11th COLLNET Meeting in Mysore, India, in October 2010, the 7th International Conference on Webometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics & 12th COLLNET Meeting in Istanbul, Turkey in September 2011, the 8th International Conference on Webometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics & 13th COLLNET Meeting in Seoul (South Korea), (http://collnet2012.kisti.re.kr).
A new journal is founded in August 2004 entitled "Journal of Information Management and Scientometrics (Incorporating the COLLNET Journal)". I was appointed as Associate Editor.
Later, after change of the title of this journal, I’m appointed as Editor of the COLLNET Journal of Scientometrics and Information Management (www.tarupublications.com).