The impact of collaboration on research about rural buildings and landscape: a case study in Italy

The importance of collaboration among peers in science is widely investigated: an essential issue is the relevance of credits shared among scholars for the good faith and cooperation in research projects. Despite its significance, so far the collaboration in Italy among colleagues belonging both to the same Scientific Disciplinary Sector (Italian SDS - AGR10 Rural buildings and agro-forest land planning) or in partnership with other SDSs, is not taken in due consideration by the scientific community and National Institutions for the performance evaluation of researchers. With this study, we aim at investigating the actual up today extent of scientific collaboration among agricultural engineers in Italy. Special attention is paid at the collaboration in research projects concerning the typical macro-theme ‘Territory, landscape and rural buildings’. We aim at understanding strengths and weaknesses of collaboration relationships to raise consciousness among all AGR10 colleagues to improve inner cooperation and strengthen more extensive collaboration with other SDSs, international institutions or organizations. Among the main findings, we underline that the SDS AGR10 is mainly focusing on six lines of research and topics concerning ‘Landscape’, which appears like the core area of current research developed by AGR10’s colleagues. Furthermore, we found international projects as an essential share of activities and the macro-groups ‘Rural buildings and rural heritage analysis/reuse/enhancement, rural buildings landscape integration, rural buildings design’ as the most representative in international collaboration. Even though the size of partnerships on international researches appears still too limited, the SDS AGR01 ‘Agricultural Economics and Rural Appraisal’ is the most representative in terms of collaborations (external synergies), while other SDSs involving ‘Ecology’ and ‘Informatics’ deserve to be mentioned.