Bibliometric techniques and social network analysis are used to define the patterns of international medical research in Latin America and the Caribbean based on information available in the Scopus database. The objective was to ascertain countries' capacity to establish intra‐ and extraregional scientific collaboration. The results show that increased output and citations in medical research have heightened the region's presence and participation in the international scientific arena. These findings may be partly influenced by the inclusion of new journals in the database and regional initiatives that may have enhanced collaboration and knowledge transfer in science. The overall rise in partnering rates is slightly greater intra‐ than extraregionally. The possible effect of geographic, idiomatic, and cultural proximity is likewise identified. The “scientific dependence” of small or developing countries would explain their high collaboration rates and impact. The evidence shows that the most productive countries draw from knowledge generated domestically or by their neighbors, which would explain why impact is so highly concentrated in the regions with the greatest output. The need to incentivize intraregional relationships must be stressed, although international initiatives should also be supported.

This study on research collaboration (RC) is an attempt to estimate the degree of internationalization of academic institutions and regions. Furthermore potential influences of RC on excellence initiatives of modern universities are investigated relying on source data obtained from SCImago Institutions Rankings. A positive correlation exists between the degree of collaboration and the normalized impact. However, in contrast to output the normalized impact increase progression is non-linear and fluctuating. Differences occur regarding output volume and normalized impact at geographical region level for the leading universities. Different patterns of the Brute force distribution for each collaboration type were also observed at region level as well as at subject area level. A continuously reduced percentage of the domestic (non-collaboration) academic output is a world trend, whereas a steady increase of ''international ? national'' collaboration is observed globally, however, less distinctive in Asia than in the other regions. The impact of Latin American papers originating from domestic production as well as from national collaboration remains considerably below world average values.