Mexico: a bridge in Cuba–U.S. scientific collaboration

Abstract

The collapse of socialist Eastern Europe in 1989 deprived Cuba’s science system of its most important academic peers. To overcome this obstacle and increase its scientific productivity, Cuba drove scientific collaboration with countries in Europe and Latin America. This study explores the role of Cuban scientific collaboration with the U.S. in the absence of diplomatic relations between those countries. The results suggest that Mexico acts as a bridge for increasing scientific collaboration between Cuba and the U.S.—measured as the number of coauthored papers published in WoS and Scopus. When the number of papers co-authored by Cuban academics with their Mexican peers doubled, the number of articles coauthored by Cuban and U.S. scientists in Scopus grew 9.31 times $2^{3.22}$ and 8.11 times $2^{3.08}$. in WoS. The findings support the hypothesis that scientific collaboration favors an increase in the productivity and scientific visibility of countries. Furthermore, the results suggest that scientific collaboration helps to lay bridges between science systems in the absence of diplomatic relations and even in the presence of political and economic hostility between them. Strengthening international scientific collaboration makes it possible for the science systems of developing countries to overcome limitations on resources and carry out cutting-edge research, and also to incorporate their scientists in mainstream research in the areas that promote their technological-scientific development.

Appendix 1: The 25 Cuban and foreign institutions that appear most frequently in articles published by Cuba between 1990 and 2020 in WoS

Rank	Affiliations	Affiliation country	Record count	% of 20.361
1	UNIVERSIDAD DE LA HABANA	Cuba	4814	24%
2	UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL AUTONOMA DE MEXICO We thank reviewer 1 for his/her supporting words to our study	Mexico	1243	6%
3	UNIVERSIDAD CENTRAL MARTA ABREU DE LAS VILLAS	Cuba	1200	6%
4	CENTRO DE INGENIERIA GENETICA Y BIOTECNOLOGIA	Cuba	994	5%
5	UNIVERSIDADE DE SAO PAULO	Brazil	891	4%
6	INST CIENCIA ANIM	Cuba	851	4%
7	CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS CSIC	Spain	838	4%
8	UDICE FRENCH RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES	France	765	4%
9	CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS	France	723	4%
10	UNIVERSIDAD DE ORIENTE SANTIAGO DE CUBA	Cuba	720	4%
11	CINVESTAV CENTRO DE INVESTIGACION Y DE ESTUDIOS AVANZADOS DEL INSTITUTO POLITECNICO NACIONAL	Mexico	634	3%
12	INSTITUTO POLITECNICO NACIONAL MEXICO	Mexico	569	3%
13	UNIVERSIDADE ESTADUAL DE CAMPINAS	Brazil	513	3%
14	NATL CTR SCI RES	France	487	2%
15	UNIVERSITE PARIS SACLAY	France	477	2%
16	UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SYSTEM	USA	445	2%
17	HELMHOLTZ ASSOCIATION	Germany	438	2%
18	RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES	Russia	410	2%
19	ISTITUTO NAZIONALE DI FISICA NUCLEARE INFN	Italy	405	2%
20	SAPIENZA UNIVERSITY ROME	Italy	403	2%
21	BENEMERITA UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE PUEBLA	Mexico	401	2%
22	UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SYSTEM	USA	401	2%
23	GOETHE UNIVERSITY FRANKFURT	Germany	398	2%
24	UNIVERSITY OF OSLO	Norway	396	2%
25	RUPRECHT KARLS UNIVERSITY HEIDELBERG	Germany	389	2%
	TOTAL (WoS 1990–2020)		20361	100%

1. The data consider total Cuban scientific productivity in WoS from 1990 to 2020.