New approach to the visualization of international scientific collaboration

In this study, visual representations are created in order to analyze different aspects of scientific collaboration at the international level. The main objective is to identify the international facet of research by following the flow of knowledge as expressed by the number of scientific publications, and then establishes the main geographical axes of output, showing the interrelationships of the domain, the intensity of these relations, and how the different types of collaboration are reflected in terms of visibility. Thus, the methodology has a twofold application, allowing us to detect significant differences that help characterize patterns of behaviour of a geographical system of output, along with the generation of representations that serve as interfaces for domain analysis and information retrieval. Information Visualization (2010) 9, 277-287. doi:10.1057/ivs.2009.31; published online 3 December 2009