Network structure of scientific collaborations between China and the EU member states

Abstract

Collaborations between China and the European Union (EU) member states involve not only connections between China and individual countries, but also interactions between the different EU member states, the latter of which is due also to the influence exerted by the EU’s integration strategy. The complex linkages between China and the EU28, as well as among the 28 EU member states, are of great importance for studying knowledge flows. Using co-authorship analysis, this study explores the changes of the network structure between 2000 and 2014. Our results show that EU member states with middle- or low- scientific capacities, in particular those who joined the EU after 2000, have been actively reshaping the network of scientific collaborations with China. The linkages between middle- and low- scientific capacity countries have been tremendously strengthened in the later years. The network positional advantage (measured by the degree of betweenness centrality) has shifted from a few dominant nations to a wider range of countries. We also find that countries like Belgium, Sweden and Denmark are in important positions connecting the relatively low-capacity ‘new’ EU member states with China. The ‘new’ EU member states—that have relatively low scientific capacity—intend to cooperate with China jointly with ‘old’ EU member(s).

The effect of collaborations on scientific research output: the case of nanoscience in Chinese regions

“…between Chinese regions, we calculate the intensity of such collaborations using the Jaccard index, to measure the strength of bilateral relationships between different regions (Luukkonen et al 1993;Wang et al 2017b). The index was firstly introduced in 1973 by Henry Small; given two different sets of papers for regions X and Y, the Jaccard index is defined as the intersection (number of co-authored papers) divided by the union of the two sample sets (Leydesdorff 2008;Small 1973).…”

“…In the past decades, China established collaborations with more than 150 countries and the number of co-published articles in China increased faster than the average (Niu and Qiu 2014;Zhou and Glänzel 2010). While more and more collaboration cooperation agreements with different countries have been established, the Chinese government has been actively promoting international collaborations between Chinese and foreign researchers, aiming to enhance the internationalization of China's scientific research activities (Andreosso-O'Callaghan 1999;Bound et al 2013;Wang et al 2017b). Yet, little is known about what types of collaboration are more beneficial for Chinese regions at various development stages.…”

A kelet-közép-európai országok publikációs kibocsátásai és nemzetközi együttműködései: trendek és változások 1997 és 2016 között

“…A régió meghatározó partnerországaivá az Egyesült Államok és Németország vált, akik közel minden második közleményben érintettek (1. táblázat). A legdinamikusabb bővülés a kelet-közép-európai országok és Kína között jött létre, ami megfelel az Európai Unió és Kína között kimutatható trendeknek (Wang, Wang, Philipsen 2017). A Kínával történő együttműködést megkönnyíti és erősíti, hogy a régió országaiban -Kínához, Japánhoz és Dél-Koreához hasonlóan -a természettudományok és a műszaki tudományok a legproduktívabb tudományos diszciplínák (Magyarország kivételével, ahol inkább az orvostudományok) (Csomós 2018).…”

Exploring the spatial dimensions of nanotechnology development in China: the effects of funding and spillovers

“…Next, an international collaboration intensity variable is constructed. This variable captures the effect of potential knowledge spillovers resulting from collaboration with foreign countries, which the literature highlights as an important channel of spillovers (e.g., Lee & Lim, 2001;Wang, Wang, & Philipsen, 2017):…”