International collaboration in science: the global map and the network

What is it about?

The international network of co-authorship relationships has been dominated by some European countries and the United States, but is expanding rapidly globally. In 2011, between 40 and 50 countries appear at the center of the international network, and almost all of them (201) participate in international collaboration. This brief communication presents both a world map with Google Map functionality (zoom, etc.) and network maps with normalized relationships that reveal complementary aspects. International collaboration in the generation of knowledge (i.e., the context of discovery) is responsible for changing the structural stratification of the sciences. Previously it was validation that was global, and discovery depended more on local contexts. This change in the relationship between the geographical and intellectual dimensions of science also has implications for national science policies.

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