Bibliometric Analysis of Scientific Collaboration in Russian Universities: Cooperation vs Individual Productivity

The paper studies the dynamics of scientific collaborations in leading Russian universities during 2010–2018. The author analyzes both individual and inter-organizational collaboration. Understanding how scientific cooperation is organized, its disciplinary specifics and qualitative differences provides important information for organizing scientific activities in universities. Based on bibliometric data we analyze changes in the number of authors and affiliated organizations according to publications from various scientific fields and quality segments. The sampling of the universities shows the growth of scientific collaboration both among individual scientists and among organizations. The number of works co-authored with Russian organizations is higher than with foreign ones, but the share of such works is rapidly decreasing. In the segment of high quality publications, universities collaborate more often than in the lower quality segment. At the same time, in the high quality segment universities more often collaborate with foreign institutions, whereas in the lower quality segment – with Russian organizations. The highest share of scientific collaboration is observed in physical sciences, the lowest – in social sciences. The analysis is limited by the data, which do not represent all collaborations between scientists.