Some UCSF departments do a better job of fostering collaboration between junior and senior faculty members. Using UCSF Profiles data, I looked at co-authorship patterns among current faculty at departments across UCSF, to see which departments have the highest rate of junior-senior collaborations. (Caveat: Departments can have different sizes, faculty experience mixes, and field-specific publishing patterns, so comparisons are always imperfect.)

Method

1. I used UCSF Profiles to identity current UCSF faculty (title includes the words “Professor,” “Dean,” or “Chancellor”) with at least 5 publications, and at least 3 years of publishing experience (i.e. time between the earliest and latest publications). I assigned faculty to departments using their current primary departmental affiliation, and considered only those departments with 20 such faculty members.
2. In each department, I sorted the faculty by seniority using, in order, title (e.g. “Professor” outranks “Assistant Professor”), number of publications, and length of publishing experience. I then selected the 25% most junior and 25% most senior faculty from each department, and considered every possible junior-senior pair. (So for a department of 40 people, I’d pick out 10 junior, and 10 senior faculty, for a total of 100 junior-senior combinations).
3. For each of these combinations, I checked if there exists at least one publication where both the junior and senior faculty members are listed as co-authors. For example, if there was a department of 12 faculty members, I’d pick the 3 most junior (A, B, C) and 3 most senior (X, Y, Z); if A and X have been co-authors on 1 publication, and B and Y on 3 publications, then there have been 2 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 9 possible.

The top 20 departments

1. Urology • 43%
   the 10 most junior and 10 most senior faculty have 43 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 100 possible
2. Physiological Nursing • 35%
   the 7 most junior and 7 most senior faculty have 17 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 49 possible
3. Radiation Oncology • 34%
   the 8 most junior and 8 most senior faculty have 22 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 64 possible
4. Neurological Surgery • 30%
   the 15 most junior and 15 most senior faculty have 67 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 225 possible
5. Orofacial Sciences • 22%
   the 8 most junior and 8 most senior faculty have 14 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 64 possible
6. Preventive & Restorative Dental Sciences • 20%
   the 12 most junior and 12 most senior faculty have 29 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 144 possible
7. Cellular Molecular Pharmacology • 19%
   the 6 most junior and 6 most senior faculty have 7 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 36 possible
8. Orthopaedic Surgery • 18%
   the 16 most junior and 16 most senior faculty have 46 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 256 possible
9. Family Community Medicine • 16%
   the 10 most junior and 10 most senior faculty have 16 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 100 possible
10. Pathology • 15%
    the 16 most junior and 16 most senior faculty have 39 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 256 possible
11. Family Health Care Nursing • 14%
    the 7 most junior and 7 most senior faculty have 7 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 49 possible
12. Laboratory Medicine • 14%
    the 13 most junior and 13 most senior faculty have 24 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 169 possible
13. Cardiovascular Research Institute • 14%
    the 6 most junior and 6 most senior faculty have 5 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 36 possible
14. Radiology • 13%
    the 35 most junior and 35 most senior faculty have 157 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 1225 possible
15. Bioengineering • 12%
    the 8 most junior and 8 most senior faculty have 8 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 64 possible
16. Institute for Health Aging • 12%
    the 8 most junior and 8 most senior faculty have 8 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 64 possible
17. Otolaryngology • 12%
    the 11 most junior and 11 most senior faculty have 15 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 121 possible
18. Pharmaceutical Chemistry • 11%
    the 8 most junior and 8 most senior faculty have 7 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 64 possible
19. Neurology • 10%
    the 42 most junior and 42 most senior faculty have 173 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 1764 possible
20. Dermatology • 10%
    the 12 most junior and 12 most senior faculty have 14 unique junior/senior co-authorship pairs, of 144 possible

Photo: CTSI at UCSF