IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v110y2017i3d10.1007_s11192-016-2230-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Growth of international collaboration in science: revisiting six specialties

Author

Listed:
  • Caroline S. Wagner

    (The Ohio State University)

  • Travis A. Whetsell

    (The Ohio State University
    University of Amsterdam)

  • Loet Leydesdorff

    (University of Amsterdam)

Abstract

International collaboration in science continues to grow at a remarkable rate, but little agreement exists about dynamics of growth and organization at the discipline level. Some suggest that disciplines differ in their collaborative tendencies, reflecting their epistemic culture. This study examines collaborative patterns in six previously studied specialties to add new data and analyze patterns over time. Our findings show that a global network of collaboration continues to add new nations and new participants; since 1990, each specialty has added many new nations to lists of collaborating partners. We also find that the scope of international collaboration is positively related to impact. Network characteristics for the six specialties are notable in that instead of reflecting underlying culture, they tend towards convergence at the global level. This observation suggests that the global level may represent next-order dynamics that feed back to the national and local levels (as subsystems) in a complex, networked hierarchy.

Suggested Citation

  • Caroline S. Wagner & Travis A. Whetsell & Loet Leydesdorff, 2017. "Growth of international collaboration in science: revisiting six specialties," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(3), pages 1633-1652, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:110:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-016-2230-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-016-2230-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-016-2230-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-016-2230-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pauline Mattsson & Patrice Laget & Anna Nilsson & Carl-Johan Sundberg, 2008. "Intra-EU vs. extra-EU scientific co-publication patterns in EU," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 75(3), pages 555-574, June.
    2. Sujin Choi, 2012. "Core-periphery, new clusters, or rising stars?: international scientific collaboration among ‘advanced’ countries in the era of globalization," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 90(1), pages 25-41, January.
    3. Gilsing, Victor & Nooteboom, Bart & Vanhaverbeke, Wim & Duysters, Geert & van den Oord, Ad, 2008. "Network embeddedness and the exploration of novel technologies: Technological distance, betweenness centrality and density," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 1717-1731, December.
    4. Roderik Ponds, 2009. "The limits to internationalization of scientific research collaboration," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 76-94, February.
    5. Wolfgang Glänzel & Cornelius de Lange, 2002. "A distributional approach to multinationality measures of international scientific collaboration," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 54(1), pages 75-89, April.
    6. Wolfgang Glänzel & András Schubert, 2001. "Double effort = Double impact? A critical view at international co-authorship in chemistry," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 50(2), pages 199-214, February.
    7. Lutz Bornmann & Caroline Wagner & Loet Leydesdorff, 2015. "BRICS countries and scientific excellence: A bibliometric analysis of most frequently cited papers," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(7), pages 1507-1513, July.
    8. Wagner, Caroline S. & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2005. "Network structure, self-organization, and the growth of international collaboration in science," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 1608-1618, December.
    9. Ali Gazni & Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Fereshteh Didegah, 2012. "Mapping world scientific collaboration: Authors, institutions, and countries," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(2), pages 323-335, February.
    10. Ali Gazni & Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Fereshteh Didegah, 2012. "Mapping world scientific collaboration: Authors, institutions, and countries," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(2), pages 323-335, February.
    11. Hoekman, Jarno & Frenken, Koen & Tijssen, Robert J.W., 2010. "Research collaboration at a distance: Changing spatial patterns of scientific collaboration within Europe," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 662-673, June.
    12. Tianwei He, 2009. "International scientific collaboration of China with the G7 countries," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 80(3), pages 571-582, September.
    13. Wolfgang Glänzel & András Schubert, 2005. "Domesticity and internationality in co-authorship, references and citations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 65(3), pages 323-342, December.
    14. Jonathan Adams, 2013. "The fourth age of research," Nature, Nature, vol. 497(7451), pages 557-560, May.
    15. Jonathan Adams, 2012. "The rise of research networks," Nature, Nature, vol. 490(7420), pages 335-336, October.
    16. Helmut A. Abt, 2007. "The frequencies of multinational papers in various sciences," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 72(1), pages 105-115, July.
    17. Sujin Choi & Joshua SungWoo Yang & Han Woo Park, 2015. "The triple helix and international collaboration in science," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(1), pages 201-212, January.
    18. Caroline S. Wagner, 2005. "Six case studies of international collaboration in science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 62(1), pages 3-26, January.
    19. Barabási, A.L & Jeong, H & Néda, Z & Ravasz, E & Schubert, A & Vicsek, T, 2002. "Evolution of the social network of scientific collaborations," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 311(3), pages 590-614.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Candelaria Barrios & Esther Flores & M. Ángeles Martínez & Marta Ruiz-Martínez, 2019. "Is there convergence in international research collaboration? An exploration at the country level in the basic and applied science fields," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(2), pages 631-659, August.
    2. Chen, Kaihua & Zhang, Yi & Fu, Xiaolan, 2019. "International research collaboration: An emerging domain of innovation studies?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 149-168.
    3. Wagner, Caroline S. & Whetsell, Travis A. & Mukherjee, Satyam, 2019. "International research collaboration: Novelty, conventionality, and atypicality in knowledge recombination," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 1260-1270.
    4. Graf, Holger & Kalthaus, Martin, 2018. "International research networks: Determinants of country embeddedness," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(7), pages 1198-1214.
    5. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Murgia, Gianluca, 2013. "The collaboration behaviors of scientists in Italy: A field level analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 442-454.
    6. Michael Cary & Taylor Rockwell, 2020. "International Collaboration in Open Access Publications: How Income Shapes International Collaboration," Publications, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-24, February.
    7. Jyoti Dua & Vivek Kumar Singh & Hiran H. Lathabai, 2023. "Measuring and characterizing international collaboration patterns in Indian scientific research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(9), pages 5081-5116, September.
    8. Yang Liu & Jinyuan Ma & Huanyu Song & Ziniu Qian & Xiao Lin, 2021. "Chinese Universities’ Cross-Border Research Collaboration in the Social Sciences and Its Impact," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-19, September.
    9. Jyoti Dua & Hiran H. Lathabai & Vivek Kumar Singh, 2023. "Measuring and characterizing research collaboration in SAARC countries," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(2), pages 1265-1294, February.
    10. Han-Wen Chang & Mu-Hsuan Huang, 2014. "Cohesive subgroups in the international collaboration network in astronomy and astrophysics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(3), pages 1587-1607, December.
    11. Tolga Yuret, 2016. "International trade in ideas," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(3), pages 899-916, June.
    12. Vieira, Elizabeth S. & Cerdeira, Jorge & Teixeira, Aurora A.C., 2022. "Which distance dimensions matter in international research collaboration? A cross-country analysis by scientific domain," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    13. Zaida Chinchilla-Rodríguez & Cassidy R Sugimoto & Vincent Larivière, 2019. "Follow the leader: On the relationship between leadership and scholarly impact in international collaborations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(6), pages 1-18, June.
    14. Maki Kato & Asao Ando, 2017. "National ties of international scientific collaboration and researcher mobility found in Nature and Science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(2), pages 673-694, February.
    15. Tokmachev, Andrey M., 2023. "Regular collective dynamics of research collaboration," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 610(C).
    16. Wang, Jue & Zhang, Liwei, 2018. "Proximal advantage in knowledge diffusion: The time dimension," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 858-867.
    17. Zaida Chinchilla-Rodríguez & Yi Bu & Nicolás Robinson-García & Rodrigo Costas & Cassidy R. Sugimoto, 2018. "Travel bans and scientific mobility: utility of asymmetry and affinity indexes to inform science policy," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(1), pages 569-590, July.
    18. Marian-Gabriel Hâncean & Matjaž Perc & Jürgen Lerner, 2021. "The coauthorship networks of the most productive European researchers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(1), pages 201-224, January.
    19. Leonardo Costa Ribeiro & Márcia Siqueira Rapini & Leandro Alves Silva & Eduardo Motta Albuquerque, 2018. "Growth patterns of the network of international collaboration in science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(1), pages 159-179, January.
    20. Kuan, Chung-Huei & Chen, Dar-Zen & Huang, Mu-Hsuan, 2024. "Dubious cross-national affiliations obscure the assessment of international research collaboration," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:110:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-016-2230-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.