Uneven scientific resilience under crisis: laboratory organization and leaders’ positioning in co-authorship networks during COVID-19

This study examines how the organization of laboratories—particularly their capital stock and labor resources—relates to changes in the structural position of laboratory leaders in the co-authorship network between the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods. We mapped the scientific output of leaders from 240 Brazilian university laboratories and constructed their co-authorship networks for the periods 2018–2020 and 2021–2023. Using Multiple Correspondence Analysis combined with Hierarchical Cluster Analysis, laboratories were classified according to their capital stock and labor composition, and changes in leaders’ degree, betweenness, and eigenvector centrality were analyzed across periods. The results reveal three distinct laboratory profiles with markedly different reported levels of disruption during the pandemic period. Labor-intensive laboratories exhibited greater organizational resilience, preserving their labor base and showing increases in leaders’ network centrality. Small-scale laboratories showed intermediate vulnerability, with moderate changes in leaders’ network positions. In contrast, capital-intensive laboratories reported higher levels of disruption in resource availability and reductions in non-permanent researchers, which were associated with declines in leaders’ centrality indicators. The findings suggest that collaborative resilience under crisis depends less on capital stock alone and more on laboratories’ capacity to sustain their human resources, highlighting associations between systemic shocks and uneven changes in scientific collaboration.