Academic support network reflects doctoral experience and productivity

Abstract Current practices of quantifying academic performance by productivity raise serious concerns about the psychological well-being graduate students. These efforts often neglect influence researchers’ environment. Acknowledgments in dissertation subsections shed light on this environment providing an opportunity for students to thank people who supported them. We analysed 26,236 acknowledgments create “academic support network” that reveals five distinct communities along way: Academic, Administration, Family, Friends & Colleagues, and Spiritual. show female mention fewer from each these communities, with exception their families, is slightly lower than males when considering number publications alone. This critically important because it means studying doctoral process may help us better understand adverse conditions women face early careers. Our results also suggest total mentioned acknowledgements allows disciplines be categorised as either individual science or team magnitudes change. male more community are associated higher levels productivity. University rankings found positively correlated size networks. However, neither university nor students’ correlate sentiments express acknowledgements. point importance networks explaining how they differ