Scientific collaboration

Scientific collaboration continues to increase in frequency and importance. It has the potential to solve complex scientific problems and promote various political, economic and social agendas, such as democracy, sustainable development, and cultural understanding and integration. Bibliometric studies over the past two decades have shown a continuous increase in the number of coauthored papers in every scientific discipline as well as within and across countries and geographic areas (e.g. see Grossman, 2002; Wagner & Leyesdorff, 2005; Cronin, Shaw & LaBarre, 2003, 2004; Cronin, 2005; Moddy, 2004; National Science Board, 2004). Subauthorship, as measured by the number of colleagues thanked in acknowledgement sections of papers, has also consistently increased (Cronin, 2005; Cronin, et al 2003, 2004). In general coauthored publications are cited more frequently than single authored papers (Persson, Glanzel & Danell, 2004). Increasingly, public and private research funding agencies require interdisciplinary, international and inter-institutional collaboration. Examples include the National Science Foundation Science & Technology Center (http://www.nsf.gov/od/oia/programs/stc) and Industry University Corporative Research Center (http://www.nsf.gov/eng/iurcc)programs, and the European Commission Sixth Research Framework (http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/fp6/index_en.cfm?p=0).