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Scientific collaboration framework of BRICS countries: an analysis of international coauthorship

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Abstract

International scientific collaboration is strategic for the growth of a country, in particular for developing countries. Among these ones the five Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) have a relevant role, also because they are joined in an association to foster mutual development. The present article studies the network of international scientific collaborations existing around the five BRICS. It does so considering the number of coauthored scientific product having authorship shared between two different countries of a group of 70: the five BRICS plus 65 countries strongly collaborating with them. Absolute numbers of coauthored scientific products are arranged in a contingency table, and Probabilistic Affinity Indexes (chosen due to size independency) are then calculated. Indexes show the relative strength of inter-BRICS collaborations with respect to the network surrounding the five countries. At the end of the work obtained results are discussed and commented, and policy suggestions are offered.

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Notes

  1. This document has been signed in Cape Town, South Africa, at the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministerial Meeting held in that town on February 10th, 2014. In this Declaration Ministers make relevant affirmations on the topic of scientific collaboration. They in fact “reaffirm the vision to strengthen the BRICS partnership for common development and advance collaboration […] stress the paramount importance of science, technology and innovation” (p. 1, passim). Besides this statement they also “agree to enter into a BRICS Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Science, Technology and Innovation” (p. 2).

  2. http://www.scopus.com/.

  3. The Scopus Content Coverage Guide (https://www.elsevier.com/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/69451/sc_content-coverage-guide_july-2014.pdf, accessed January 2016) presents the following data on Scopus: it encompasses more than 22,000 active titles, and 6.4 Million conference papers; titles from all geographical regions are covered, including non-English titles: approximately 21 % of titles in Scopus are published in languages other than English (or published in both English and another language); more than half of Scopus content originates from outside North America representing various countries Europe, Latin America and the Asia Pacific region.

  4. Pajek is one of the most popular software used to analyze social networks through numerical or visual representation. See http://vlado.fmf.uni-lj.si/pub/networks/pajek/ (visited January 2016).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CNR-IRCrES, National Research Council of Italy, Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth, Via Real Collegio 30, 10024, Moncalieri, TO, Italy

    Ugo Finardi

  2. Department of Economics, Society and Politics, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Via Saffi 15, 61029, Urbino, PU, Italy

    Andrea Buratti

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  1. Ugo Finardi
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  2. Andrea Buratti
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Correspondence to Ugo Finardi.

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Finardi, U., Buratti, A. Scientific collaboration framework of BRICS countries: an analysis of international coauthorship. Scientometrics 109, 433–446 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-1927-0

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