Research Trend Analysis on International Research Collaboration in Regard to Antarctic Studies

The purpose of this study is to analyze research activities related to Antarctic science through a bibliographic study and to understand and evaluate the implications. This study is based on 78,445 articles which were retrieved from the Science Citation Index(SCI) database during the period 1998−2015. Through a quantitative analysis and a Social Network Analysis, we made several findings and drew out the implications. First, many countries, in general, have increased multi-national research cooperation in order to enhance research productivity. However, Korea’s cooperative research activity is below the average level. Second, considering the 4 centrality indexes, which are derived from the SNA, Korea had a lower score in terms of centrality indexes. Based on these findings, Korea should formulate a more dynamic or proactive strategy in order to enhance its participation in international research cooperation efforts. Korea, the 10th country to build two or more research bases in Antarctica, should make greater efforts to bring the appropriate level of the phase.