Collaboration of the scientific community at the national and international level stands as an important factor towards enhanced knowledge production and scientific excellence. Indeed, interactions and scientific relationships across networks, teams, institutions and countries increase the visibility, the number of citations and the impact of publications. The level of international collaboration can be measured by analyzing author-institutional affiliations provided by publications.

The collaboration degree in Greek publications and its evolution over the period 2002-2016, as displayed in Figure 2.6.1, shows a clear increasing trend. This is most evident at the international level where 58,7% of the 2016 publications were a result of international collaboration as opposed to 37,0% in 2002. 

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Figure 2.6.1

During the 15-year period, 2002-2016, Greek researchers cooperated with scientists from countries all over the world. Figure 2.6.2 highlights these links and regions. Greece’s main publishing partners have been the United States, the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy. 

Figure 2.6.2

Figure 2.6.3 illustrates the annual growth in the number of Greek publications with national, international and no collaboration for the period 2002-2016.

Figure 2.6.3

Significantly, the type of scientific collaboration is positively correlated with the relative citation impact score of the produced publications (Figure 2.6.4). Publications produced as a result of international collaboration feature a higher citation score than those (publications) produced by solely Greek collaboration, and even higher than those publications produced without any collaboration. This stands for all fields of science.

Figure 2.6.4

 

[n1] Knowledge, networks and nations, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2011

 

[n2]OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2011

 

Collaboration degree was calculated on the basis of the whole counting approach. Consequently, in the case of a publication produced by authors who came from different countries, each country received a whole count of the publication.

 

Number of publications with at least one national collaboration

 

Number of publications with at least one international collaboration

 

Number of publications with one single Greek institution

 

National collaboration: number of publications with at least one national collaboration. International collaboration: number of publications with at least one national collaboration. No collaboration: number of publications with one single institution.