The Australian universities where academics co-publish articles with colleagues in China

Peter Bentley from the Innovative Research Universities group wondered which universities had close research connections with Chinese institutions, so he searched Web of Science data for co-publications, publishing his findings on Twitter.

On numbers of articles the Group of Eight leads. Between 2005 and this year Uni Sydney is first with over 4000 plus articles, followed by UNSW on 4000, Uni Queensland just under 4000, and then Monash U, Uni Melbourne, Uni Adelaide, UWA, Uni Wollongong, UTS, CSIRO, Curtin and ANU all over 2000.

For the per centage of a university’s total research articles accounted for by co-pubs with authors in China, Uni Wollongong (26 per cent) and UTS lead (well over 20 per cent). They are followed by (in descending order) RMIT, Curtin U, CSIRO, Swinburne U, Uni Adelaide, QUT, Western Sydney U, UWA, Griffith U, UNSW, Uni Newcastle, Uni Sydney, Uni Queensland, Deakin U, ANU, Uni SA and Monash U all over 10 per cent.

China research partners are a big deal for Australian universities. Dr Bentley reports China and Australia are each other’s second biggest collaborator on research publications. However, 13 per cent of Australia’s publications are co-authored with China, compared to 3 per cent of China’s with Australia. “International collaboration is Australia’s strength, we do it a lot, not China.”