Emerging ties: Factors underlying China’s co-publication patterns with Western European and North American research systems in three molecular life science subfields

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This paper analyses the changing geographic balance in China’s international co-publications in general and in three molecular life science subfields in particular. No support is found for the expectation that intensive, designated institutional support for research collaboration in the form of joint laboratories has a positive impact on the number of co-publications at the systemic level. The size of partner research systems, and since the turn of the century the relative size of overseas Chinese scientific communities in various partner countries do help to explain the observed geographic variations in the share of China’s international co-publications. The paper concludes by discussing some of the potential factors underlying the perceived change in the dynamics of international co-publication behavior of mainland Chinese scientists since the turn of the century.