SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATION BETWEEN CANADA AND NORDIC COUNTRIES

Project - Potential for Scientific Collaboration between Canada and Nordic Countries, 1998-2003: Denmark - Finland- Iceland - Norway - Sweden
Client - International Trade Canada (ITCan)

Description - This report aims to describe the main features of the scientific production of Canada and the Nordic countries, and identify the fields that present the greatest potential for mutually beneficial collaboration. It briefly presents the features of these countries’ scientific output measured using bibliometric methods. Scientific output is measured by extracting and standardizing publications data contained in the Thomson ISI Science Citation Index.

Each of the Nordic countries has a higher proportion of papers coauthored with international collaborators than Canada. Iceland ranks highest in this respect with 66% of its scientific papers coauthored with at least one foreign partner. Sweden has the greatest number of collaborations with Canada (1,651 papers). This represents 4.6% of Sweden’s international collaborations and 2.7% of Canada’s. Norway has the greatest preference for collaboration with Canada: 5.9% (676 papers) of international collaborations. It is followed by Finland with 5.2% (838 papers), Denmark with 5% (1,012 papers), Sweden 4.6% (1,651 papers) and finally, Iceland 3.8% (40 papers) of international collaborations. For Canada, the shares of international collaborations with these countries are lower, which is linked to the fact that they publish fewer papers generally. The most important Nordic collaborator for Canada is Sweden: 2.7% of Canadian collaborations are with Sweden. Next is Denmark (1.7%), Finland (1.4%), Norway (1.1%) and Iceland (0.1%).

Number of collaborations with Canada by nordic country by year, 1998-2003
Source: Compiled by Science-Metrix from data prepared by OST (Thomson-ISI SCI)

Promising scientific fields for collaboration

Canada-Sweden
Biology, clinical medicine, biomedical research and earth and space, are the fields that offer the greatest potential for mutually beneficial, competence strengthening collaboration between Canada and Sweden.

Canada-Denmark
The most promising avenues for collaboration between Canada and Denmark are biology and earth and space where both countries have similar strengths both in terms of intensity and quality of scientific output. Canada and Denmark would also benefit from collaboration in clinical medicine and biomedical research. Denmark would possibly benefit more since, on average, Canada publishes in more highly cited journals.

Canada-Finland
Clearly, the most mutually self-reinforcing area for collaboration between Canada and Finland is clinical medicine where Canada has greater impact but Finland has higher specialization. Other areas where collaboration would be advantageous are biology, biomedical research and earth and space. In the latter two fields, Canada has a slightly higher expected scientific impact than Finland and is more specialized.

Canada-Norway
The most promising fields for mutually beneficial collaboration between Canada and Norway are biology and earth and space. Collaboration in clinical medicine and in biomedical research would allow Norway to benefit from the greater expected impact of Canada’s publications. In physics both countries produce good quality science but neither country emphasizes research in this field.

Canada-Iceland
Collaboration with Iceland would be beneficial for Canada in earth and space where Iceland shows both higher specialization and higher expected impact. In terms of more mutually beneficial areas, there is a great potential for collaborating in biology, clinical medicine and biomedical research, but in every case the difference in size between Canada’s and Iceland’s output means that the impact on Canadian would necessarily be minor.

STUDY REPORT

	Archambault É., Côté G. and Michaud B. 2005.
	Potential for Scientific Collaboration between Canada and Nordic Countries, 1998-2003: Denmark - Finland - Iceland - Norway - Sweden. Prepared for International Trade Canada (ITCan) by Science-Metrix, 20 pages.
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