Meanings of "everyone in the same place at the same time" for scientific collaboration: a structural network analysis

This study examines to what extent in-person encounters at major Brazilian Physics Education conferences reflect and foster scientific collaboration among attendees. Our dataset comprises 264 individuals who participated in at least one Encontro de Pesquisa em Ensino de Física (EPEF) and one Simpósio Nacional de Ensino de Física (SNEF) over recent years, covering seven editions in total. We assessed collaboration across multiple categories: project participation; coauthorship in conference papers, journal articles, books, book chapters; and other scholarly outputs, based on information reported in Lattes CVs. A key distinction of our approach is that we operationalize scientific collaboration beyond journal coauthorship alone. Results indicate a lightly fragmented collaboration network: among those who attended at least three editions, 92% belong to the largest connected component. The plurality of research foci within Physics Education does not appear to fragment the collaboration network. Event attendance breadth does not translate into high centrality scores. The network formed by SNEF and EPEF participants shows no actors with pronounced dominance in collaboration terms, suggesting substantial opportunities to form new ties among researchers and educators in Physics. We conclude by outlining hypotheses, limitations, and avenues for future work.