Network structure of scientific collaborations between China and the EU member states

Xianwen Wang,Niels J Philipsen,Lili Wang

doi:10.1007/s11192-017-2488-6

Abstract

Collaborations between China and the European Union (EU) member states involve not only connections between China and individual countries, but also interactions between the different EU member states, the latter of which is due also to the influence exerted by the EU’s integration strategy. The complex linkages between China and the EU28, as well as among the 28 EU member states, are of great importance for studying knowledge flows. Using co-authorship analysis, this study explores the changes of the network structure between 2000 and 2014. Our results show that EU member states with middle- or low- scientific capacities, in particular those who joined the EU after 2000, have been actively reshaping the network of scientific collaborations with China. The linkages between middle- and low- scientific capacity countries have been tremendously strengthened in the later years. The network positional advantage (measured by the degree of betweenness centrality) has shifted from a few dominant nations to a wider range of countries. We also find that countries like Belgium, Sweden and Denmark are in important positions connecting the relatively low-capacity ‘new’ EU member states with China. The ‘new’ EU member states—that have relatively low scientific capacity—intend to cooperate with China jointly with ‘old’ EU member(s).

Highlights

Committed to promoting science and technology and increasing China’s global influence, the Chinese government has placed great emphasis on international cooperation
To further facilitate and benefit from knowledge flows, it is of importance to understand the structure and dynamics of collaboration networks
What is more important for the European Union (EU) side, the intra-European collaboration appears to be embedded within the network of collaborations with China

Summary

Introduction

Committed to promoting science and technology and increasing China’s global influence, the Chinese government has placed great emphasis on international cooperation. China has gradually established science and technology collaborations with more than 150 countries and signed cooperation agreements with nearly 90 countries (Zhou and Glanzel 2010). Along with the fast and comprehensive growth of China-EU relations, the collaboration in S&T between China and European countries has grown rapidly, which could be reflected by increased mobility of people (including scientists), collaboration in research projects, and coauthorship in publications (Li and Chang 2014). Neverthess, the limited research on scientific collaborations between China and the EU so far has been mainly conducted at the national level, for instance in relation to the UK (Bound et al 2013; Zhou et al 2013)

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