An approach to the porcine health and production research structure in Brazil, 2010–2018

The research project described here sets out to identify and evaluate the topological features of the social structure underlying the porcine health and production system in Brazil between 2010 and 2018. To do this, a sample of the research carried out in the said system was delimited through a set of scientific documents written by several authors from different public and/or private Brazilian institutions. The unit examined was the co-authorship established in the said publications by the authors themselves. It used social network analysis to discover the dynamics that existed based on the cooperation occurring among the protagonists and the collaborative work done by the different research groups. It was observed that the main subjects of joint research were circovirus, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, bacterial infections, innocuousness, animal welfare, sanitary management, reproduction, and genetics. An analysis of the network research structure revealed respective decreases of 5.8% and 52.3% in the communicative and connective capacity of the research network. This could suggest diminished research capacities that are limited to particular technological narratives, which might be linked to some of the animal health contradictions identified in the aforementioned system.