Reasons for and developments in international scientific collaboration: does an Asia–Pacific research area exist from a bibliometric point of view?

Stefanie Haustein (), Dirk Tunger (), Gerold Heinrichs () and Gesa Baelz ()
Additional contact information
Stefanie Haustein: Forschungszentrum Jülich, Central Library
Dirk Tunger: Forschungszentrum Jülich, Central Library
Gerold Heinrichs: International Bureau of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research
Gesa Baelz: International Bureau of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research

Scientometrics, 2011, vol. 86, issue 3, No 12, 727-746

Abstract: Abstract This paper describes the different forms of and tries to give reasons for international scientific collaboration in general. It focuses on eleven countries in the Asia–Pacific region by evaluating their national research output with the help of bibliometric indicators in particular. Over two million journal articles published by these countries between 1998 and 2007 in ISI-listed periodicals are analyzed. Discipline-specific publication and citation profiles reveal national strengths and weaknesses in the different research domains. The exponential increase in publication output by China over the last few years is astonishing, but in terms of visibility, i.e. citation rates, China cannot keep up with leading science nations, remaining below the world average. A discipline-specific analysis shows that Chinese authors took an active part in more than a quarter of all articles and reviews published in the field of materials science in 2007, while their contribution to medical research is very low. Co-publication networks among the eleven countries are generated to observe the development of cooperation bonds in the region. Applying Salton’s measure of international collaboration strength, an above-average strengthening of scientific collaboration in the Asia–Pacific region can be observed.

Keywords: Scientific cooperation; Country level study; Discipline specific publication profiles; Asia–Pacific Research Area (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-010-0295-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:scient:v:86:y:2011:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-010-0295-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11192

DOI: 10.1007/s11192-010-0295-4

Access Statistics for this article

Scientometrics is currently edited by Wolfgang Glänzel

More articles in Scientometrics from Springer, Akadémiai Kiadó
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().