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 on publications.

The collaboration degree in Greek publications* and its evolution over the period 2000-2014, as displayed in Figure 2.6.1, shows a clear increasing trend, both at the national and international level. In 2014, co-publications by Greek researchers accounted for 74.6% of the total publications output, compared to 59.8% in 2000.

Figure 2.6.1

During the 15-year period, 2000-2014, Greek researchers cooperated with scientists from 174 countries. Figure 2.6.2 highlights these links and regions. Greece’s main publishing partners were the United States, the UK, Germany, France 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 2000-2014.

Figure 2.6.3

Significantly, the type of scientific collaboration is positively correlated with the relative citation impact score of produced publications (Figure 2.6.4). Publications produced by 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.