Using data from co-authorships at the international level in all fields of science in 1990 and 2000, and within six case studies at the sub-field level in 2000, different explanations for the growth of international collaboration in science and technology are explored. We find that few of the explanations within the literature can be supported by a detailed review of the data. To enable further exploration of the role of recognition and rewards as ordering mechanisms within the system, we apply new tools emerging from network science. These enquiries shows that the growth of international co-authorships can be attributed to self-organizing phenomenon based on preferential attachment (searching for recognition and reward) within networks of co-authors. The co-authorship links can be considered as a complex network with sub-dynamics involving features of both competition and cooperation. The analysis suggests that the growth of international collaboration is more likely to emerge from dynamics at the sub-field level operating in all fields of science, albeit under institutional constraints. Implications for the management of global scientific collaborations are explored.Version 24 June 04 to domestic collaborations. Narin et al. (1991) has shown that internationally coauthored articles are more highly cited than other articles. Despite this body of evidence, the question of why this class of research is growing so quickly or why it has a relatively high impact needs more discussion. A theoretically satisfying explanation of the phenomenon has yet to be offered. (Katz & Hicks 1987;Wagner-Döbler 2001) This article continues these inquiries along two lines. Drawing upon data (published elsewhere) for 1990 and 2000, different explanations offered within the literature for the increase in international collaboration are discussed. We find that existing explanations are incapable of fully explaining the emerging structure of ICS. In seeking other explanations, we turn to recent literature from the network sciences. Physicists needing large datasets for the study of network dynamics have used scientific co-authorships as a subject. In the process, they have revealed fascinating dynamics about collaborative networks, including the mechanism of preferential attachment as a structuring factor.Using the tools developed by Barabási & Albert (1999) and Newman (2001) we investigate whether these mechanisms also apply at the international level. Our findings reveal the emerging structure of linkages within the international system at the sub-field level, and perhaps move science studies closer towards a theoretically satisfying explanation for the rise of international collaboration. A brief review of the literature examining the rise of international collaborationOver the past 25 years, a number of reasons have been suggested to explain the growth of ICS. One group considers the environment within which science operates: the environmental factors can be divided into internal and external factors. A second group considers the con...

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International collaboration as measured by co-authorship relations on refereed papers grew linearly

Global collaboration continues to grow as a share of all scientific cooperation, measured as coauthorships of peer-reviewed, published papers. The percent of all scientific papers that are internationally coauthored has more than doubled in 20 years, and they account for all the growth in output among the scientifically advanced countries. Emerging countries, particularly China, have increased their participation in global science, in part by doubling their spending on R&D; they are increasingly likely to appear as partners on internationally coauthored scientific papers. Given the growth of connections at the international level, it is helpful to examine the phenomenon as a communications network and to consider the network as a new organization on the world stage that adds to and complements national systems. When examined as interconnections across the globe over two decades, a global network has grown denser but not more clustered, meaning there are many more connections but they are not grouping into exclusive ‘cliques’. This suggests that power relationships are not reproducing those of the political system. The network has features an open system, attracting productive scientists to participate in international projects. National governments could gain efficiencies and influence by developing policies and strategies designed to maximize network benefits—a model different from those designed for national systems.

This paper seeks to understand whether a catastrophic and urgent event, such as the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, accelerates or reverses trends in international collaboration, especially in and between China and the United States. A review of research articles produced in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic shows that COVID-19 research had smaller teams and involved fewer nations than pre-COVID-19 coronavirus research. The United States and China were, and continue to be in the pandemic era, at the center of the global network in coronavirus related research, while developing countries are relatively absent from early research activities in the COVID-19 period. Not only are China and the United States at the center of the global network of coronavirus research, but they strengthen their bilateral research relationship during COVID-19, producing more than 4.9% of all global articles together, in contrast to 3.6% before the pandemic. In addition, in the COVID-19 period, joined by the United Kingdom, China and the United States continued their roles as the largest contributors to, and home to the main funders of, coronavirus related research. These findings suggest that the global COVID-19 pandemic shifted the geographic loci of coronavirus research, as well as the structure of scientific teams, narrowing team membership and favoring elite structures. These findings raise further questions over the decisions that scientists face in the formation of teams to maximize a speed, skill trade-off. Policy implications are discussed.

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Six case studies of international cooperation at the subfield level are presented and compared. The cases examine international collaboration by detailing co-authorship links among researchers by field, evidenced at the level of the nation. Cases are offered based on possible drivers for collaboration: sharing ideas, cooperating around equipment, cooperating around resources, and exchanging data. Scientometric and network analysis of linkages are presented and discussed for each of the six cases: astrophysics, geophysics, mathematical logic, polymers, soil science, and virology. Visualizations of the cosine matrices within each field are compared for 1990 and 2000. The research shows that international collaboration grew in all the fields at rates higher than the international average. The possibility that rapid increases in international collaboration in science can be attributed in part to certain drivers related to access to resources or equipment sharing could not be upheld by the data. Other possible explanations for the rapid growth of collaboration are offered, including the possibility that weak ties evidenced by geographically remote collaboration can promote new knowledge creation. Context for this researchA number of studies have demonstrated that international collaboration in science and technology is increasing.

Based on the Science Citation Index-Expanded web-version, the USA is still by far the strongest nation in terms of scientific performance. Its relative decline in percentage share of publications is largely due to the emergence of China and other Asian nations. In terms of citations, the competitive advantage of the American "domestic market" is diminished, while the European Union (EU) is profiting more from the enlargement of the database over time than the US. However, the USA is still outperforming all other countries in terms of highly cited papers and citation/publication ratios, and it is more successful than the EU in coordinating its research efforts in strategic priority areas like nanotechnology. In this field, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has become second largest in 2005 in both numbers of papers published and citations behind the USA.