Author affiliations in publications allow us to examine collaboration between different research organisations as well as between research organisations and companies. More information about factors related to authorship is available in the chapter Authorship.
International collaboration
The number or proportion of international co-publications can be used as one indicator of international collaboration.
Most commonly, international databases define international co-publications as publications with at least two authors that are affiliated to at least two different countries.
According to the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture’s manual of publication data collection, a publication is an international co-publication if at least one of its authors is in the service of a non-Finnish organisation. This also applies in cases where an author is employed by both a Finnish and a foreign organisation and these are both included in the publication’s affiliation information. The term ‘national co-publication’ is used when the affiliations of the publication's authors are in the same country. Several tools allow for comparing various indicators in relation to collaboration.
Corporate collaboration
The number or proportion of co-publications made with companies can be used as one indicator of corporate collaboration.
In most cases, international citation databases determine publications with at least two authors, one of whom is affiliated with a company as corporate co-publications.
According to the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture’s manual of publication data collection, a publication is defined as a corporate co-publication if at least one of its authors is in the service of the company. If the author is in the service of both the company and another organisation and if these are both included in the publication’s affiliation information, the publication can be considered a co-publication with a company. Several tools allow for comparing various indicators in relation to collaboration.
Responsible use
- The forms of collaboration may vary a great deal between the different fields of sciences. Opportunities for collaboration also vary.
- When reviewing indicators reflecting collaboration, it should be kept in mind that not all collaboration can be seen in publications.
- There are significant uncertainty factors related to measuring the amount of company collaboration, as the methods used by databases may not recognise company affiliations very well.
- See also the questions related to assessing responsibility in the chapter Indicators.
Corporate collaboration indicators in databases and other sources
Numbers of publications and indicators based on the numbers can be found in:
- Citation databases. Learn more about citation databases in the chapter Most commonly used multidisciplinary citation data sources.
- Analysis tools. Learn more about analysis tools in the chapter Analysis tools based on citation data sources.
- Vipunen, the statistic service of the Finnish National Agency for Education. The service features various statistics and indicators on Finnish universities based on the number of publications: Vipunen – Education Statistics Finland.