Visualization of scientific co-authorship in Spanish universities: From regionalization to internationalization

Purpose – To visualize the inter-university and international collaboration networks generated by Spanish universities based on the co-authorship of scientific articles. Design/methodology/approach Formulation based on a bibliometric analysis of Spanish university production from 2000 to 2004 as contained in Web of Science databases, applying social network visualization techniques. The co-authorship data used were extracted with the total counting method from a database containing 100,710 papers. Findings – Spanish inter-university collaboration patterns appear to be influenced by both geographic proximity and administrative and political affiliation. Inter-regional co-authorship encompasses regional sub-networks whose spatial scope conforms rather closely to Spanish geopolitical divisions. Papers involving international collaboration are written primarily with European Union and North and Latin American researchers. Greater visibility is attained with international co-authorship than any other type of collaboration studied. Research limitations/implications Impact was measured in terms of journals rather than each individual article. The co-authorship data were taken from the Web of Knowledge and were not compared to data from other databases. Practical implications The data obtained may provide guidance for public policy makers seeking to enhance and intensify the internationalization of scientific production in Spanish universities. Originality – The Spanish university system is in the midst of profound structural change. This is the first article to describe Spanish university collaboration networks using social network visualization techniques, covering an area not previously addressed.