Morphogenesis of epistemic networks: a case study

Agents producing and exchanging knowledge are forming as a whole a socio-semantic complex system. We argue that several significant aspects of the structure of a knowledge community are primarily produced by the co-evolution between agents and concepts, i.e. the evolution of an epistemic network. Focusing on a particular community of scientists working on a well-defined topic, we micro-found various stylized facts regarding its structure by exhibiting processes at the level of agents accounting for the emergence of epistemic community structure. After assessing the empirical interaction and growth processes, and assuming that agents and concepts are co-evolving, we successfully propose a morphogenesis model rebuilding relevant high-level stylized facts.