  On 28 October 2021, from 11:30-13:00, the 2nd Xi Xian "Innovation Cloud Forum", co-organised by the IIDPF and the Centre for Science and Technology Strategy and Policy Research, affiliated with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology, was held online as scheduled. Associate Professor Hu Zhigang, Deputy Director of the Institute of Science and Technology Management at Dalian University of Technology, was the guest speaker, presenting a lecture entitled "World Research Collaboration at a Glance: Scale, Structure and Role".
  The lecture by Associate Professor Hu Zhigang concentrated on the study and visualisation of world research collaboration networks from three perspectives: size, structure and role, based on scientometric methods.
  In the era of big science, due to the complexity of scientific problems, the scale of scientific data and the need to share resources, the Newtonian "solo" model of scientific research is no longer suitable for the innovation needs of the era of big science, and team-based scientific cooperation has become a necessary and mainstream form of scientific innovation. On the other hand, the advent of the internet has greatly reduced the cost of transportation and communication in scientific collaboration, enabling scientists to form and lead cross-institutional and even cross-national research teams.
  In the current context, research collaboration is not simply a linear relationship between authors, but a complex network of multiple co-authorship nodes and lines of co-authorship. The study of this complex network requires the use of scientometric methods, such as the examination of metrics and algorithms for collaborative relationships in research collaboration networks (link importance metrics), members in research collaboration networks (node importance metrics) and team discovery in research collaboration networks (network clustering algorithms). Associate Professor Hu then focuses on three perspectives on research collaboration research: scale, structure and roles. He also explained in detail how to examine the characteristics and variations of research collaboration networks in different countries from the above research perspectives in conjunction with two research papers.
  The first paper, Mapping research collaboration in different countries and regions: 1980-2019, as the title suggests, examines and maps research collaboration in different countries and regions from 1980 to 2019. The article adopts two research perspectives: the scale of collaboration and the structure of collaboration, and gives three indicators of the scale of collaboration, namely the number of authors per article, the number of institutions per article and the number of countries per article, and two indicators of the structure of collaboration, namely the share of international collaboration and the share of industry-academia-research collaboration.
  All three collaboration size indicators show an upward trend, according to data from 1980-2018. The most pronounced upward trend is in the number of authors per article.
  A comparison of the average number of authors between 1980-1984 and 2015-2019 shows that, firstly, France, Italy and Russia are at the top of the list, with Saudi Arabia at the bottom and the United States in the middle; secondly, in terms of growth, there is a general increase in Asian countries, a general decrease in European countries and a decrease in African and Middle Eastern countries. This is due to the development of "super-authorship" disciplines such as particle physics and nuclear physics in countries such as France and Russia, resulting in a larger average number of authors, while countries such as China and Brazil have a smaller average number of authors due to the discovery of experimental science.
  With regard to disciplinary differences, the humanities and social sciences have the smallest average number of authors, with about one to two authors, and the mathematics and computing fields have a smaller average number of authors, with about two to four authors. The average number of authors is larger in engineering and biology, with 3 to 6 authors, and largest in medicine, with 4 to 9 authors.
  When comparing the data on the average number of institutions between 1980-1984 and 2015-2019, it is found that France tops the list in terms of country, the United States is second, Saudi Arabia is last and China is in the middle; in terms of the growth of the average number of institutions, the countries ranked in front and behind remain basically the same, while China and European countries generally decline. This is mainly due to differences in the average number of institutions in different countries due to their university systems, e.g. the Chinese university system is large and comprehensive, and therefore the average number of institutions is smaller, while the French universities are small and beautiful, and therefore there is more collaboration between institutions and universities and the average number of institutions is larger. In addition, the part-time status of the authors of the literature also affects the variation in the average number of institutions per page.
  This article also analysed the average number of teams per article and the average team size interactively and created a 2 x 2 analysis matrix. The results found that countries with many and large teams include Italy, Japan and China, countries with few and small teams include Saudi Arabia and South Africa, countries with many and small teams include France and the USA, and countries with few and large teams include Switzerland and Malaysia.
  In terms of the last indicator, the country comparison of the average number of regions, it is found that in terms of the average number of regions, Greece, Australia and Belgium lead the European regions, with China, India, Iran and the United States in last place and France in the middle; in terms of the growth of the average number of regions, the ranking of European countries generally rises, while Asian countries generally fall, with Iran, South Korea, Turkey and Russia showing the greatest decline. The rise of a country leads to less dependence on foreign research, so the average number of regions in this category (e.g. South Korea) decreases, as well as the average number of regions in countries subject to international sanctions, such as Iran.
  The data on the two structural indicators of cooperation shows that the proportion of international cooperation papers has increased significantly and consistently, and the proportion of industry-academia-research cooperation papers is generally on the rise.
  A comparison of countries based on the share of international collaborative papers from 1980-1984 and 2015-2019 found that Saudi Arabia topped the list with a high share of 75%, with India, Turkey and China coming in last at less than 25%. In terms of growth, European countries generally rose in the rankings and Asian countries generally fell, with South Korea, Iran and Turkey showing the largest declines. In addition to the aforementioned mechanisms by which the rise of countries and sanctions affect the share of international cooperation papers, national policies also have an impact on the share of international cooperation papers, such as Saudi Arabia's foreign cooperation policy, which also promotes Saudi Arabia's cooperation with other countries in terms of scientific cooperation and has a 'bilateral' character.
  As for the results of the country comparison of the percentage of papers on industry-academia collaboration, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and Belgium topped the list with more than 5%, while Iran, India and Egypt ranked last with less than 1%. In terms of growth, Sweden, France, Norway and Singapore rose in the ranking, Japan and Korea fell, and China's ranking remained unchanged. The analysis of the reasons for this suggests that domain factors and policy factors affect the proportion of industry-university collaboration papers, such as telecommunications and pharmaceuticals, which are characterised by collaboration, while Switzerland has a very developed pharmaceutical industry, thus affecting the proportion of industry-university collaboration papers in this country.
  The industry and discipline analysis of the percentage of industry-academia collaboration papers supports these views. In terms of the number of academic papers from industry, the telecommunications technology industry had the highest number of academic papers and the highest ranking from 1980-1984; the pharmaceutical technology industry had the highest number of academic papers and the highest ranking from 2015-2019. It is also worth noting that the contribution of industry in science (volume of papers) has declined significantly over the last 40 years. In the 1980s, the company with the highest volume of papers (Nokia) was ranked in the top 100 worldwide, whereas now the company with the highest volume of papers (Novartis) is ranked only 606th, indicating that the current involvement of industry in basic research is not increasing or decreasing.
  In terms of the subject areas of industry-university cooperation papers, the humanities account for a relatively small number, the pharmaceutical field, the computer field account for a relatively high number, and the petroleum field accounts for the highest number.
  To conclude the article, an interactive analysis of the size and heterogeneity in the structure of research cooperation was conducted, and a 2×2 analysis matrix was constructed. The results found that the size and heterogeneity of research cooperation in France, Russia and Singapore are large; most countries, such as New Zealand, Japan and Germany, have smaller size and heterogeneity in research cooperation; the US, China and India have larger size and less heterogeneity in research cooperation; and Switzerland, South Korea and Portugal have smaller size and more heterogeneity in research cooperation.
  At this point, this article has characterised and mapped research collaborations between countries and regions around the world.
  The second article presented by Associate Professor Hu is An EU without the UK: Mapping the UK's changing roles in the EU scientific research. This article analyses and predicts the changing roles of the UK in scientific research collaboration with the other 27 EU countries after Brexit. The role of scientific collaboration is analysed in terms of both paper output and paper collaboration.
  In terms of paper output, based on 2016 data on the output of the 28 EU countries (EU28 with the UK), it was found that the UK led in the number of publications, accounting for 22.5% of all publications, while its contribution of independent publications was 14.4%, indicating that about 1/3 of the publications were produced in collaboration with the EU27. The UK also has the highest contribution from the humanities and social sciences across all disciplines, followed by medicine, and to a lesser extent engineering, computing and biology.
  The article further compares the output of papers for the UK and Germany and finds that the UK output is mainly focused on medicine and pharmacology, while the German output is mainly in the field of materials, applied physics, physical chemistry and other disciplines.
  After a comparative analysis of the disciplinary structure of EU28 with that of the United States and China, it was found that the UK has a highly developed field of medicine and that its disciplinary structure is highly similar to that of the United States, whether this suggests that the United States has a better chance of replacing the UK in cooperation with other EU countries after Brexit.
  In terms of thesis cooperation, the UK's main cooperation countries include Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Western and Southern European countries, while Germany's main cooperation countries are Austria, Luxembourg and Eastern European countries. The reasons for the differences are mainly geographical, linguistic and cultural factors.
  A comparison of the UK's areas of collaborative work on papers with four representative EU countries shows that the UK and Ireland are comparable in all areas, while collaboration with Germany is focused on medicine, humanities and engineering, with Poland on medicine and humanities, and with the rest of Malaysia on a small number of disciplines and to a significant degree.
  In summary, the UK's role in research collaboration with EU countries in different fields is summarised based on both output and collaboration perspectives. In medicine (general medicine and surgery) and humanities and social sciences, the UK is the Pioneer, i.e. high output and low collaboration; in several disciplines, such as medicine (neuroscience) and ecology, the UK plays the role of Leader, i.e. high output and high collaboration; in the chemical field and link science, the UK is the Assistant, i.e. low output and high collaboration; in electrical and electronic and mechanical engineering In the field of electrical and mechanical engineering, the UK is Participator, i.e. low output and low cooperation.
  After explaining the two papers, Associate Professor Hu also shared his views on scientometrics. He noted that there are many elements to be measured in scientometrics, such as institutions, authors, countries, cited authors, citations and so on. Secondly, the current classical methods in scientometrics are only "blind", exploring only a part of scientometrics. Finally, the development of scientometrics in the next decade will be characterised by three features, namely, a shift from caption analysis to full-text analysis, from scientometrics to research intelligence, and from static mapping to dynamic video.
  The seminar concluded with an active discussion between students and faculty on data cleaning, mapping tools and links to causal identification and policy recommendations for science measurement.