Knowledge networks of the Mainland social sciences(2009–2010)

This study focused on SSCI papers published by the Mainland during 2009 to 2010. Scientometrics analysis and social network analysis were used as approaches to construct and describe the knowledge structure of these papers in marco-, meso-, and micro-levels. In marco-level, the result is that the Mainland trends to cooperate with developed countries while in meso-level most collaboration was done between institutions of Hong-kong and other Mainland institutions. This meant that many institutions of developed countries took part in the collaboration but with lower scientific productivity. 120 keywords with high occurrence formed micro-level knowledge structure of the field and fifteen topics were derived from them. About half of them concentrated on economy and management, others included health, culture, and psychology. It is implyed that scientific resources have an uneven distribution in the field. The limitations of this study also were presented.