COLLEGE PARK, Md. –   A new analysis of research citations by University of Maryland professor of computer science Ben Shneiderman iindicates that the average number of citations a university research paper receives is progressively boosted by having: (1) more than one author; (2) coauthors from multiple U.S. institutions; (3) international coauthors; and, most powerfully, (4) coauthors from business and/or government and/or NGOs.

These and related findings are presented in a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), in which Shneiderman makes the case for “the superior benefit of what he calls a “Twin-Win Model” for conducting research—a model that encourages the formation of teams that simultaneously pursue the goals of generating breakthrough published research, AND validated, ready to disseminate solutions to real human problems.

Shneiderman—a widely recognized pioneer in human-computer interaction and information visualization and a Distinguished University Professor—found that for UMD researchers a research collaboration with non-academics (business, government and/or NGOs) produced research papers that averaged 20.1 citations, almost seven times the number of citations (3.0) of published research by single-authors. These findings were based on data, through 2016, from the Elsevier SCOPUS database, which holds the metadata on 70 million published papers.

Other “striking” results were that research produced by collaborations among University of Maryland faculty averaged 6.1 citations; UMD researchers collaborations with faculty at other US universities produced papers that averaged 9.2 citations; and UMD researcher collaborations with international faculty raised the average paper citation to 13.9.

In the article, published in the December 10th edition of PNAS, National Academy of Engineering member Shneiderman wrote that SCOPUS data on  research output at other top U.S. private and public universities shows this same pattern of substantially higher impact university research when researchers at these institutions co-authored papers with off-campus colleagues.

According to his PNAS paper, evidence shows business professionals also benefit from working with academics.  Shneiderman found that SCOPUS data on published research from 12 large corporations during 2012–2016 showed that papers by corporate researchers that also had academic coauthors had almost twice the average citation count (11.7) as papers without academic coauthors (average citations of 6.3). These data provide new evidence in support of the arguments in Shneiderman’s 2016 book The New ABCs of Research: Achieving Breakthrough Collaborations.

Professor Lorne Whitehead at the University of British Columbia notes: “It makes sense that when experts from different societal sectors partner deeply, their combined expertise can produce more ideas and better research outcomes. This view has motivated the formation of the Highly Integrative Basic and Responsive (HIBAR) Research Alliance, including the University of Maryland, the University of British Columbia, and others, with the goal of helping all universities advance this work.

“Shneiderman’s newly discovered correlations strongly support this effort,” said Whitehead, who was not involved in this PNAS study. Whitehead and Shneiderman are among a number of academics who helped form the HIBAR Alliance.

In his new PNAS paper, Shneiderman further makes the case for these twin-win university-business collaborations by citing a 2017 study in the journal Science that looked at the relationship between scientific research papers and subsequent patents.

“This study found that patents often cited academic papers, but more importantly, academic papers that are cited by patents get greater attention in the research community,“ he wrote. And he notes this study in Science found that patented inventions that draw directly on scientific advances also were more impactful compared to other patents.

“There is growing evidence that when academics work with business or government partners, they address authentic problems that challenge the research team to produce more potent solutions. Such partnerships often have access to more resources (money, staff, data, etc.), enabling them to take on more substantive problems,” Shneiderman said.

He noted that some academic researchers continue to have reservations about such partnerships. And certainly there are challenges in such collaborations for both university researchers and their collaborators in the private or government sectors. However, many researchers and many universities, including the University of Maryland, have recognized the power and benefits of such partnerships, he said.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – The increasing saltiness and alkalinity of streams and rivers is creating a toxic mix that includes metals and nitrogen-containing compounds and threatens drinking water supplies and ecosystem health nationwide, according to a new University of Maryland-led study.

“The bottom line of our findings is that when humans add salt to waterways, that salt also releases a lot of dangerous collateral chemicals,” said Sujay Kaushal, a professor of geology and lead author of the study.

The new findings build on a study by the same research group earlier this year that described a “Freshwater Salinization Syndrome,” caused by road deicers, fertilizers and other salty compounds that humans indirectly release into waterways.

The new research takes a closer look at the global, national and local consequences of this harmful runoff. Published December 3 in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, the study shows that salty, alkaline freshwater can release a variety of dangerous chemicals that travel together throughout watersheds and have much worse effects than the individual contaminants alone. 

The group’s latest work uses data from more than 20 streams in different regions of the U.S., as well as data and field observations from the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore metropolitan areas. Their findings highlight the need for new and more comprehensive regulation and pollution management strategies. “It’s clear that regulatory agencies need to find new ways to address these ‘chemical cocktails’ released by saltier water, rather than looking at individual freshwater pollutants one by one,” said Kaushal.

 In one set of observations, the researchers sampled water from the Paint Branch stream near the UMD campus before, during and after a 2017 snowstorm, allowing them to trace the effects of road salt washed into the streams by the melting snow.

“Salt concentrations during the snowstorm were surprisingly high—it was like we were analyzing sea water,” said Kelsey Wood ’15, a geology graduate student at UMD and a co-author of the study. “But we weren’t expecting such a high corresponding peak in metals." 

A similar chemical dynamic was evident when Flint, Michigan, switched its primary water source to the Flint River in 2014. The river’s high salt load combined with chemical treatments made the water more corrosive, causing lead to leach from water pipes and creating that city’s well-documented water crisis.

Kaushal’s group began by assessing previously published data from rivers in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Russia, China and Iran, substantially expanding the geographic boundaries of the researchers’ previous work. Their analysis suggests that Freshwater Salinization Syndrome could be a global phenomenon, with the most conclusive support showing a steady trend of increased salt ions in both U.S. and European rivers. These trends trace back at least 50 years, with some data reaching back far enough to support a 100-year trend.

"Given what we are finding, I continue to be surprised by the scope and magnitude of the recent degradation of Earth's surface waters,” said study co-author Gene Likens, president emeritus of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and a distinguished research professor at the University of Connecticut. “The formation of novel chemical cocktails is causing deterioration far beyond my expectations."

The increased release of salt into the environment by people can in turn spur stream beds to release more salt, said Kaushal, who also has an appointment in UMD’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center.

“This high salt load not only liberates metals and other contaminants, but there is also evidence that the initial salt pulse releases other salt ions from the streambed and soils, such as magnesium and potassium, which further contribute to keeping overall salt levels high,” he said.