Six case studies of international collaboration in science

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.