UK Tops EU for Most Frequent Science Collaboration with China

A decade’s worth of increasing Chinese investment in science has delivered a large increase in the nation’s scientific output without any shrinkage of relative commitment to international science collaboration.

This is one of the key findings of a study of international science collaboration trends commissioned by the British Embassy and Consulates General in China, which also shows that the UK has emerged as China’s most frequent collaborator among EU nations.

The study looked at trends over the past decade in the numbers of papers Chinese scientists have published jointly with international co-authors in the recognised international science literature.

The trends show that despite a rapid growth in the total number of papers published from China over the past decade, China’s capacity to collaborate internationally is growing in line with its overall output of science,

Ten years ago jointly authored science papers accounted for around 30 per cent of China’s annual science output in the international literature. Today’s figure is about the same, indicating that research expansion at home has not been at the expense of engagement with overseas labs.

The overall trends picked out by the study confirm that China’s most frequent science collaborator is the US, followed by Japan. Less obviously, among EU nations the UK emerges as China’s most frequent collaborator. In 2005, Chinese scientists published 1561 papers with UK co-authors compared with 1381 with German co-authors and 827 with French. Chinese co-authorship with UK was especially marked in engineering and medical sciences.

The study looked at trends in joint international papers across 10 specific disciplines or research fields including physics, medical science, engineering and materials science. These trends reveal that China collaborates more frequently with countries in their fields of scientific strength than in their fields of comparative weakness.

For example, Chinese scientists publish proportionally more with German scientists in physics, an area of German strength; and proportionally more with UK scientists in medicine and biology, fields of comparative strength for the UK. Chinese science partnership with the US is also weighted more towards biomedicine and the life sciences, compared with China’s more physics-weighted partnership with the EU.

Commenting on the study, British Embassy science counsellor David Concar said: “Science papers are important outputs of any country’s research base, and this study helps to throw light on emerging patterns of partnership with China. It’s clear that these patterns reflect not just the size of the partner country’s economy but its particular science strengths and specialisms.”

Mr Concar said: "This pool of research-led and largely undirected international collaboration can be viewed as a source of ready-made partnerships for undertaking more strategic joint research.”

Notes

The findings are based on an independent bibliometrics study by Evidence Ltd., commissioned by the UK Office for Science and Innovation and the Science and Innovation Network of the British Embassy and Consulates General in China. The data set has been derived from the databases of Thomson Scientific and covers publications in 8,700 high-impact, international research journals over the period 1996-2005.

英国成为与中国合作发表科研论文最多的欧盟国家

十年来中国科研投入的增长带动了其科研论文总数的大副增加，同时也没有放松参与国际科研合作的努力。

英国驻华大使馆和领事馆开展的国际科研合作趋势调研项目得出了以上结论，并且指出英国是与中国合作发表科研论文最多的欧盟国家。调研着眼于过去十年中，中国科学家参与的国际合著在公认的国际科学文献上刊载数量的发展趋势。

以上趋势显示，在不考虑过去十年间中国科研论文刊载总数的高速增长的前提下，中国的国际科研合作实力的提升保持着与其综合科研论文增长相一致的趋势。十年前合著科研论文约占当年国际文献上刊载的中国科学论文总数的30％，与目前的数字持平。这表明中国国内科研活动的扩张并没有以牺牲国际合作为代价。

研究证实，中国与美国在科学研究合作方面最为频繁，其次是日本。在欧盟国家中，英国则是与中国合作最频繁的国家，这一点并不广泛的为人所知。在 2005年里，中国科学家发表的论文中有1561篇是与英国科学家合作编写的，有1381篇是与德国科学家合作，法国则是827篇。其中与英国的合作最多体现在工程学和医学上。

该调研项目意在分析国际科研合作在联合发表文章上的趋势，侧重于物理、医学、工程和材料科学等10个特定学科和研究领域。这些趋势表明,中国与其他国家合作时会更多的侧重于此合作国的科研强项。例如,中国科学家在物理学领域与德国科学家合作较多，物理学是德国的强项。同样中国与在英国较强项的医学和生物学领域方面合作较多。美国则在生物医药学和生命科学领域更受到中国科学界国际合作方面的青睐。

英国驻华大使馆科技参赞康大卫DavidConcar先生对这项研究结果给予了这样的评价：“科学论文是一个国家研究基础的重要产出。这项研究帮助我们开拓了与中国合作的新形式。它清楚地表明，这些新的合作不仅反映了合作伙伴国家的经济力量，同时还反映出它的科学实力与专业化的程度”。

康大卫先生说：“我们认为，这个大部分间接的，以研究为导向的国际合作库是个现成的合作伙伴资源，将承担更多的战略性的合作研究。”

编者注

该研究结果是由英国EvidenceLtd.公司根据独立的文献计量方法，由英国贸工部科学与创新办公室，以及英国驻华大使馆总领馆科学与创新处承担得出的。数据的编排是根据托马逊科学(Thomson Scientific) 数据库得出的，它囊括了从1996到2005年间8700 份有高度影响的国际研究期刊。