11-12U

In our study we analyze how does an academic community react on a particular urgent task which abruptly arises and poses also scientific problems. To this end, we have chosen to examine a body of research strictly concerning Chornobyl disaster that occurred on 26 April 1986. We analyzed data about the papers that appeared in scientific journals since 1986 using the Scopus database and the Ukrainian bibliographic database Ukrainika naukova. In order to quantify our analysis, we measured distribution of papers between different scientific fields, constructed coauthorship network and defined its main characteristics, calculated growth rates of research in different fields. In particular, our analysis allows to compare contribution of the international community to the Chornobyl-related research as well as integration of Ukraine in the international research on this subject.