Abstract
As scientific collaboration is a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly important, studies on scientific collaboration are numerous. Despite the proliferation of studies on various dimensions of collaboration, there is still a dearth of analyses on the effects, motives and modes of collaboration in the context of developing countries. Adopting Wallerstein’s world-system theory, this paper makes use of bibliometric data in an attempt to understand the pattern of collaboration that emerges between South Africa and Germany. The key argument is that we can expect the collaborative relationship between South Africa and Germany to be one that is shaped by a centre–periphery pattern. The analyses show that a theory of scientific collaboration building on the notion of marginality and centre–periphery can explain many facets of South African–German collaboration, where South Africa is a semi-peripheral region, a centre for the periphery, and a periphery for the centre.
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Notes
We will even go a step further than Wallerstein, at least implicitly, who did not base his world system on geographical units. This concession, however, must be made, because we intend to explore the collaboration pattern among scientists from two clearly defined geographical units, South Africa and Germany.
In any case, it must be stated that marginality is not a trap from which there is no escape. Indeed there have been countries that have managed to do so, and there are many more which are moving to the periphery, such as many countries in South-East Asia.
It should, however, be noted that South African scientists publish actively in journals that originate within the country. Most of these are internationally acclaimed journals and listed and indexed in prominent databases.
Note that sometimes more or less pathological cases might show up when a co-publication does not imply collaboration. For example, in natural sciences sometimes research groups will allow their equipment to be used and will in turn be rewarded by being named as co-author, but no collaborative activity took place whatsoever.
Clearly, it may be argued that this result may stem from the different absolute importance of the countries: Since France is much greater than South Africa, if even all else being equal, more likely that a co-publication emerges. However, when dividing the shares from Table 1 by the size of the collaboration partner, nothing important changes. South Africa is also with regard to it own size a relatively unimportant collaboration partner for Germany, while Germany is one of the most important partners for South Africa. Dividing the share by total publications in 1000 Germany’s reaches a value of 0.14 while South Africa has only 0.05.
The size-adjusted values are 1.34 for Nigeria’s importance for South Africa, while South Africa reaches a value of 2.67 concerning its importance for Nigeria.
Appropriate indicators of outward orientation are defined below.
We use specialisation indicators as a proxy for centrality in that field.
There is also a working paper available under http://publica.fraunhofer.de/eprints/N-61027.pdf.
In fact, we neglect the time series structure of the data here. We could solve this by running a multiple time series model. Unfortunately, since the dependent variable is bound to −1 and 1, we would have to run a truncated regression at the same time. As far as we are aware of the literature, there is no treatment of a multiple time series truncated regression model, not to speak of a software implementation. Therefore, by running this model as if it referred to cross-section data, we chose the lesser of two evils.
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Schubert, T., Sooryamoorthy, R. Can the centre–periphery model explain patterns of international scientific collaboration among threshold and industrialised countries? The case of South Africa and Germany. Scientometrics 83, 181–203 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0074-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0074-2