NETWORKS OF INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION

Wagner (2008) writes that in the recent history of global science a „new‟ invisible college has formed whose base is international collaboration (pp.23-26). It differs from the „old‟

invisible college insofar that research is in the twenty first century seen not any more as a nation-state enterprise but a global one. Knowledge and development cannot be contained within the borders of a single nation and so countries must learn to take advantage of the opportunities that international collaboration present. A most important opportunity is that of gaining access to discourse and with it, the possibility to participate in disseminating knowledge that can serve policy makers and society in the solving of problems like environmental ones. But the benefits are not only found at societal level.

Benefits for individual scientists who choose to internationally collaborate include tapping into resources, complementary of integrative capabilities, well connected people, and last but not least, funding (p.37)

To say that international collaboration carries with it benefits for those who choose to participate is not new. Many studies have emphasis the benefits of international collaboration. Many studies have also mapped different scientific fields in order to uncover Center-Periphery structures that are present in science, as well as to reveal the increase in international collaboration throughout disciplines, between disciplines, and in the global scientific community. For forest science empirical evidence of the presence of international collaboration has not been examined. Many efforts have been made to bring about international collaboration, the most prominent that of organizations such as IUFRO (International Union of Forest Research Organizations) which are ground on the principle of international collaboration. It is thus important to examine the structure of

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international collaboration in forest science in order to see how internalized international collaboration is on the part of the forest scientific community, which will be seen as an opportunity to integrate discourse for those actors who do not count with as much resources as others that dominate the global scientific discourse on forest science.

For the three issues studied, networks of collaboration were built using co-authored articles as a means of formal international collaboration. Partitions⁶⁰ were built using the income class of the countries. Figures 4.16, 4.17, and 4.18 were constructed using PAJEK software for network visualization and analysis (de Nooy et al., 2005). In figures 4.16 to 4.18 networks were analyzed to identify Center countries within the network. The position that is analyzed here refers to the access of scientific information. A central actor, or in this case country, is one that either has quick access to information (scientific knowledge) circulating in the network or who may control the circulation of information (scientific knowledge). As the networks here are information networks it is important to identify the countries which have a key role in distributing and gaining scientific knowledge. If these countries are identified, actors (scientists and countries) who enter the network can more effectively focus their strategies of incorporation in the global discourse.

Certain measures of network analysis are used to examine how scientific knowledge can be gained and transmitted through the network (de Nooy et al., 2005: p.123 et seq.).

These concepts are: (1) closeness centrality which indicates how near or far a country is to all others; this measure is linked to the idea of how accessible information is to the actors in a network. The closer a country is to all others, the faster information can be acquired by it. The closeness centrality is higher if the total distance to all other countries is shorter⁶¹. And (2) the betweenness centrality of a country indicates the importance of a country. In this sense, a country is more central if it is a link in more information chains between other countries in the network. A high betweenness centrality indicates that that country is an important intermediary in the communication network⁶². Additionally, figures have been drawn through automated procedures for finding optimal layouts; only in some minor cases were the figures modify so as to gain clearer sight of the vertices and connections.

Figure 4.16 maps the international collaboration network for the issue of climate change.

Through visual inspection it is clear, and as the degree of internationalization (figure 4.15a) showed, that four countries have no international ties and are thus portrayed as loose vertices within the network: Denmark (DK), Belgium (BE), New Zealand (NZ) and Argentina (AR). The other countries did have some degree of international collaboration.

Twenty countries have some participation in the global science discourse on forest and climate change.

From figure 4.16, climate change can be seen as a research area that interests countries with higher economic resources: it is only integrated by actors from countries with either high income (yellow vertices) or upper-middle income (green vertices); no lower income

60 A partition of a network is a classification or clustering of the vertices in the network such that each node or vertex is assigned to exactly one class or cluster. Country classification based on the GDP per capita was used, classifying a country as high, upper-middle, lower-upper-middle, or low income countries (World Bank 2004).

61 Closeness centrality: large distances between vertices will yield lower centrality scores.

62 Betweenness centrality: the more an actor is a go-between, the more central his/her position in the network.

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countries are present. The international links formed are mainly those between high income countries. Brazil, Panama, Poland, and Estonia (all upper-middle income countries) are involved in international collaboration but they are dependent on the United States to connect with the rests of the countries.

The country that has the most access to scientific knowledge within this network is the United States, which has a closeness centrality of 0,43. Thus the United States has the shortest distance to all other countries in the network and can so tap more effortlessly to the scientific information circulating within the network.

The United States is as well the one which mostly controls the scientific knowledge circulating in this network: its betweenness centrality is the highest of all countries (0,45).

Without the presence of this county the network would be broken into two sub-networks, and additionally three countries would lose opportunities to integrate the global discourse and form other collaboration ties: Estonia (EE), Austria (AT), and Poland (PL).

One of the sub-networks is composed by northern European countries such as Germany (DE), Ireland (IE), Netherlands (NL), Finland (FI), Sweden (SE), and Iceland (IS).

Germany and Finland act as central countries. Germany connects the entire sub-network with the rest of the participating countries and Finland connects Iceland and Sweden with Ireland, Germany, and the Netherlands, as well as with the entire international community. It is thus comprehensible that Germany is the second highest ranked country in the access of information and in the control (closeness centrality is 0,38 and betweenness centrality is 0,32).

Figure 4.16. International collaboration network for climate change. Yellow nodes depict high income countries, whereas green upper-middle income countries (Source: own calculations)

On the other side of the international collaboration network, another sub-network may be observed. One that is connected to all other countries by the United States and where

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Canada and the United Kingdom act as connection points between various countries.

Canada, however, is in a higher position to access and control the scientific knowledge circulating in the network. This country ranks third both on closeness centrality (0,35) and betweenness centrality (0,24).

The result for this particular issue mirrors that there is really no global community of forest science, but one divided into Anglo-America / European one (with special presence of Scandinavian countries).

A different picture is seen when analyzing the issue of forest fires. Figure 4.17 illustrates the international collaboration ties that form the global discourse network. This issue is, in comparison to climate change, one in which international collaboration is not the main strategy for integrating discourse. From the 13 countries that are present in the issue, seven of them have gained access to discourse without any international collaboration backing them up. Those countries that do collaborate are joined together by the United Kingdom. Scientific knowledge travels from one point to another within this network always through this country (closeness centrality 0,38); the United States follows with a closeness centrality of 0,33. Brazil is in a third position in terms of accessing information (closeness centrality of 0,29) as it can reach all other countries through shorter paths than the other lower-middle income countries Indonesia and Bolivia.

The fundamental countries in the network, in other words those countries that control the information, are the United Kingdom (0,09) and the United States (0,06). All other connected countries are replaceable (betweenness centrality is 0).

Figure 4.17. International collaboration network for forest fires. Yellow nodes represent high income countries, green represent upper-middle income countries, and red lower-middle income countries

(Source: own calculations)

Finally the network of biodiversity is illustrated through figure 4.18. This is a much more complex network that the previous two. On the one hand more countries are involved in the discourse, 23 countries, and on the other more international links have been created.

In this network there is a presence of countries with less economic resources: both lower-middle income (Indonesia and Bolivia) and low income (Ethiopia and Central Republic of

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Africa) countries participate. These countries are not isolated regarding collaboration but are present in the global discourse through their collaboration ties. Unlike Finland, Ireland, Portugal (all high income countries) and Mexico (upper-middle income country) who participate in the global discourse but do so isolated from the rest.

In this network more countries have access to the scientific knowledge circulating. But those with the highest accessibility are once again the United Kingdom in first place (closeness centrality is 0,35), Denmark in second place (closeness centrality 0,33), and tying for third place Belgium and The Netherlands (each with a closeness centrality of 0,28). The positions of other countries within the network leave many of them with a relatively high closeness centrality, seven other countries have a closeness centrality between 0,27 and 0,23 (Norway, the United States, New Zealand, Central Republic of Africa, Indonesia, Bolivia, and Sweden), which means that they are all in good position to access the scientific knowledge flowing in the network, but as well to rapidly share knowledge with all other countries.

Figure 4.18: International collaboration network for biodiversity. Yellow nodes depict high income countries, green ones upper-middle income countries, red low-middle income, and blue low income

countries (Source: own calculations)

The control of information, however, is not as equally distributed in this network as the access to the scientific knowledge. The highest control can be exercised by the United Kingdom (betweenness centrality of 0,30), followed by Denmark (0,22), Norway (0,19), and Sweden (0,16). All other countries either have low betweenness centrality (between 0,06 and 0,03) or do not score at all in this indicator, for example countries like Germany, Greece, and Bolivia which either connect with a single other country (in the case of Germany with Ethiopia) or they connect with countries that are in turn connected with others through more direct links: as is the case of Greece connecting with France and Italy (these last two being connected on their own). So if United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, or Sweden each or all decide to leave the network negative effects will be appreciated by all other countries in that their ties to all other countries are severed.

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Interesting is that countries such as Denmark, Norway, and Sweden act directly connecting high income countries, but the United Kingdom connects the wider variety of countries (lower-middle and low income countries as well).

Here, as well there is the presence of the Scandinavian country section (Norway, Sweden, and Denmark) in collaboration. As in climate change, this reflects the non-existence of a global community.