Impact of national size on research collaboration - A comparison between Northern European and American universities

It is generally assumed that there is a negative correlation between nation al scientific size and amount of international research collaboration: The larger the size is of the national scientific arena, the lesser the amount of international research collaboration. In this study, the collaboration p attern of 49 universities is analysed and a comparison is made between the Northern European and American universities in our sample. It was found tha t the American universities have more national and less international colla boration than the European ones. However, for the European universities the re are no impact of national size although the countries differ much in sci entific size. This deviation from the general trend indicates that the abov e-mentioned explanation is too simple and that national scientific size doe s not correlate negatively with the amount of international research collab oration without exceptions.