International Research Collaboration

lnternational collaborative behaviour among scientists is investigated by examining international co-authorship patterns for a number of scientific fields using the 1973 Science Citation Index. Three major findings emerge: (1) the more basic the field, the greater the proportion of international co-authorships; (2) the larger the national scientific enterprise, the smaller the proportion of international co-authorship; (3) international co-authorships occur along clearly discernible geographic lines, suggesting that extra-scientific factors (for example, geography, politics, language) play a strong role in determining who collaborates with whom in the international scientific community.