Mapping international collaboration in science in Asia through coauthorship analysis

Using data from SCI 1998, we have analysed international collaboration in s cience in 11 Asian countries. Papers resulting from collaboration among the se countries and with G7, European Union, OECD and selected Latin American and African countries were classified under subject categories to character ize each country's total and collaborated scientific literature output. Jap an (16.4% of internationally collaborated papers), India (17.6%) and Taiwan (16.3%) recorded an internationalization index less than 30 whereas China (28.5%), South Korea (24.5%) and Hong Kong (36.2%) recorded an internationa lization index greater than 40. India, China and South Korea have collabora ted more in physics, whereas the other eight countries have collaborated mo re in life sciences. In almost all fields and for virtually all Asian count ries, USA is the most preferred collaborating partner, All G7 countries col laborate more with China, which is emerging as a leader in regional collabo ration, than with India.