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This paper discusses different phenomena concerning the ‘internationality’ of science. International visibility is enhanced by the impact of research results, which can be stimulated by changing the publication strategy towards higher impact journals. There is a strong positive correlation between international co-publication and high impact as measured by citation analysis. Political and cultural factors strongly influence international collaboration. Patterns of scientific collaboration often strikingly reflect political situations. There are also ‘science-internal’, or field-dependent, factors. Often ‘external’ and ‘internal’ factors are strongly related, for instance, social sciences and humanities are more nationally and culturally oriented than the basic natural sciences. A specific bibliometric method of structuring ‘maps’ of research fields may provide further insight into ‘internationality’ and related factors in the development of science.
Anthony F. J. van Raan (Wed,) studied this question.