National characteristics in international scientific co-authorship relations

The main objective of this study is the elaboration of national characteristics in international scientific co-authorship relations. An attempt is made to find statistical evidence of symmetry and asymmetry in co-publication links, of the relation between international co-authorship and both national research profiles and citation impact. Four basic types can be distinguished in the relative specialisation of domestic and internationally co-authored publications of 50 most active countries in 1995/96 concerning the significance of the difference between the two profiles. Co-publication maps reveal structural changes in international co-authorship links in the last decade. Besides stable links and coherent clusters, new nodes and links have also been found. Not all links between individual countries are symmetric. Specific (unidirectional) co-authorship affinity could also be detected in several countries. As expected, international co-authorship, on an average, results in publications with higher citation rates than purely domestic papers. However, the influence of international collaboration on the national citation impact varies considerably between the countries (and within one individual country between fields). In some cases there is, however, no citation advantage for one or even for both partners.