Winners of the game: the FP7 and H2020 Death Stars

The FP7 and H2020 stable partnership graphs are very cohesive. Both display cores of highly connected nodes that are also densely connected to each other. To discover them, we computed a full decomposition of both networks into k-cores. Both cores for the maximal value of k turned out to be unusually large and densely connected. This is an indicator of assortativity (high-degree nodes connect preferentially with other high-degree nodes) and clustering (a node’s neighbours are connected with high probability). We have come to call these cores the Death Stars of FP7 and H2020. The FP7 Death Star includes 44 organisations connected by 908 edges; the H2020 one includes 78 organisations connected by 2,778 edges.

There is a high continuity between the Death Stars of the two framework programmes. 21 organisations already in the FP7 Death Star are also in the H2020 one. The following table summarises them. The number of partners indicates stable partners: Death Stars are found at the heart of the respective stable partnership graphs.

Name	Country	FP7 proj	FP7 partners	H2020 proj	H2020 partners
FRAUNHOFER GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E V	DE	1,177	1,931	284	471
CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE	FR	1,613	1,597	350	457
CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE	IT	710	1,246	141	352
COMMISSARIAT A L’ ENERGIE ATOMIQUE	FR	649	1,159	171	363
IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE	UK	643	734	147	173
THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD	UK	708	716	169	192
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON	UK	582	607	168	214
AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS	ES	650	927	158	335
MAX PLANCK GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN E V	DE	658	696	151	217
EIDGENOSSISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE ZURICH	CH	484	649	97	225
THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER	UK	379	698	88	181
VTT TECHNICAL RESEARCH CENTRE OF FINLAND	FI	422	840	87	205
POLITECNICO DI MILANO	IT	257	478	86	178
DANMARKS TEKNISKE UNIVERSITET	DK	401	821	24	223
ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE	CH	501	519	73	106
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN	DE	247	420	72	139
KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET	SE	314	484	69	178
CHALMERS TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLA AB	SE	264	607	59	132
RHEINISCH-WESTFAELISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE AACHEN	DE	229	459	59	136