Scientific cooperation of Latin American countries through bibliometrics indicators

The international scientific cooperation between Latin American countries, the European Union and the United States have been studied through their pu blications in the Science Citation Index. A total of 17,473 documents coaut hored between 1991-95 has been analysed. Bibliometric indicators were used to identify the collaboration patterns of each Latin American country, prod uctivity, principal subject of the cooperation and partners. As a whole, co authored papers amount to 32% of mainstream scientific articles of Latin Am erica although a great heterogeneity can be observed. Brazil, Argentina, Me xico, Chile, Venezuela and Colombia account for more than 95% of the copubl ished articles. Around 44% of the copublications have been with USA and ano ther 44% with EU, while copublications among Latin American countries repre sent 5,4% and 6,6% joint publications with the three regions. The most freq uent case was the coauthorship between two countries (15,298 documents). Co llaborative papers have grown along the period studied, particularly multil ateral collaborations. Physics, including Astrophysics, Biomedicine, Clinic al Medicine and Agriculture were the fields that present higher collboratio n rates.