Research collaboration at Nordic universities

Scientific collaboration has become a major issue in science policy. The need to survey and follow up such collaboration calls for statistical indicators sensitive enough to reveal the structure and change of collaborative networks. Bibliometric analysis of co-authored scientific articles is one promising approach. This study presents data generated from a comprehensive analysis of some 20,000 articles produced by 22 Nordic universities (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden) in 1993. The results show that scientific collaboration plays a key role for all universities, and that they collaborate with external institutions in just about the same extent. The inter-Nordic university network comprises about ten percent of all institutional collaborations. However, the amount of collaboration varies across fields, physics and medicine having a high degree of collaboration. The inter-Nordic network is of equal importance as the national network in physics and geosciences. Especially, when one looks at international collaboration outside the Nordic arena, the number of overlapping partners is quite low. This suggests that research specialization is the major force governing international contacts.