INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATION IN ARAB COUNTRIES

Through internationally coauthored scientific articles in the Science Citation Index data base, we analyse international collaboration of some Arab countries in science. Our findings show that international collaboration of these countries is concentrated on engineering & technology and fundamental & applied biology. Collaboration is often established through doctoral studies and the links thus created continue. Cultural and historical traditions play an important role in collaboration. We compare the SCI data base with a local survey of chemists in Morocco and discuss some of the limits of bibliometric methods.