Scientific networks have fostered knowledge creation and the innovation process by means of information interchange and mainly by the combination of competences of different groups searching for common goals. In this paper we outline the chronology and review the main approaches to study collaborative scientific networks. More specifically the article addresses the possibilities brought by the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to scientific network research by discussing examples of knowledge systems from the Lattes Platform: Egressos (Alumni), Colaboradores (Collaborators), and Redes-GP (Research Group Networks). Those systems allow for the realization, with wide amounts of data, of social network analysis, both using algorithms from the literature and creating new approaches brought about by the ICTs.
Scientific collaboration; Social network analysis; Research networks; Information and communication technologies
