We study collaboration networks in terms of evolving, self-organizing bipartite graph models. We propose a model of a growing network, which combines preferential edge attachment with the bipartite structure, generic for collaboration networks. The model depends exclusively on basic properties of the network, such as the total number of collaborators and acts of collaboration, the mean size of collaborations, etc. The simplest model defined within this framework already allows us to describe many of the main topological characteristics (degree distribution, clustering coefficient, etc.) of one-mode projections of several real collaboration networks, without parameter fitting. We explain the observed dependence of the local clustering on degree and the degree–degree correlations in terms of the “aging” of collaborators and their physical impossibility to participate in an unlimited number of collaborations.

• Received 29 March 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.70.036106