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International collaborations betweenresearch universities experiences andbest practicesMarcelo Knobel a Tania Patricia Simotildees a amp Carlos Henrique deBrito Cruz a ba Instituto de Fiacutesica Gleb Wataghin (IFGW) Universidade Estadualde Campinas (Unicamp) Campinas Brazilb Fundaccedilatildeo de Amparo agrave Pesquisa do Estado de Satildeo Paulo(FAPESP) Satildeo Paulo BrazilPublished online 19 Mar 2013

To cite this article Marcelo Knobel Tania Patricia Simotildees amp Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz (2013)International collaborations between research universities experiences and best practices Studiesin Higher Education 383 405-424 DOI 101080030750792013773793

To link to this article httpdxdoiorg101080030750792013773793

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International collaborations between research universitiesexperiences and best practices

Marcelo Knobela Tania Patricia Simotildeesa and Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruzab

aInstituto de Fiacutesica Gleb Wataghin (IFGW) Universidade Estadual de Campinas(Unicamp) Campinas Brazil bFundaccedilatildeo de Amparo agrave Pesquisa do Estado de Satildeo Paulo(FAPESP) Satildeo Paulo Brazil

The world science scenario has observed in recent years an importanttransformation With the advent of fairly complete publication databases and theimprovement of the Internet a number of world university rankings were createdwith a clear bias towards research universities Also a new field of scientometricshas been developed and recent studies have clearly demonstrated that the impactof a publication increases if it is written by authors of more than one country Ageneral overview of the research collaboration landscape is presented consideringthe advantages and problems of international cooperation and the role of researchuniversities In particular the case of Ibero-America is explained with a detailedfocus on Brazil Some interesting practices that have been introduced to improvethe degree of internationalization of Brazilian science are shown and discussed

Keywords higher education internationalization international cooperationco-authorship big science scientometrics

Introduction

Research universities have observed in recent years a growing willingness offaculty members to collaborate internationally Most of the international collabor-ation used to be between researchers in the developed world who tended to havegreater financial and technical resources and a consolidated infrastructure Morerecently these collaborations have become more balanced as scientists in developedcountries recognized how local context affects their work and those in developingcountries built up their own research capabilities Furthermore SouthndashSouthresearch collaborations have also grown along with advances in science andhigher education in these countries

International cooperation is not only a trend but it is almost a mandatory practicefor any individual research group or country that would seek visibility on the scienceand technology scene Besides the obvious enhancement of domestic scientific capa-bilities through the exchange of knowledge and experience it often offers access tofacilities that may not be available locally for example especially after the advent ofthe so-called lsquobig sciencersquo (computer facilities particle accelerators radio telescopesetc) (Weinberg 1967 Giudice 2012) Collaboration between countries can alsobring other gains including developing trust among new country blocs (European

copy 2013 Society for Research into Higher Education

Corresponding author Email knobelreitoriaunicampbr

Studies in Higher Education 2013Vol 38 No 3 405ndash424 httpdxdoiorg101080030750792013773793

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Union Mercosur) and engagement of eacutemigreacute researchers with their country of originamong others

Research universities play a fundamental role in this discussion because the cultureof international collaboration is usually well established and because of the high stan-dards they set for research In fact the so-called world-class universities are constantlylooking to enhance their level of internationalization mainly through faculty andstudent exchange programs as well as international agreements with partner univer-sities (Altbach and Salmi 2011) Thus most quality assessment done of universitiesnowadays considers international engagement a very important quality proxy This isthe case of the controversial but fairly well-established international rankings Mostof the rankings are designed to evaluate research universities and take into accountthe degree of internationalization in terms of international faculty members inter-national reputation and international students among other parameters It is worthnoting that the main input of the rankings is typically the number and impact ofpublished papers and a further parameter is related to the international visibility ofthe publication (ie it should be published in journals of international circulationusually in English and with as much international cooperation as possible)

Generally speaking several bibliometric studies have shown that papers withauthors from multiple countries tend to be cited more frequently than domestic orsingle-country papers (Peclin et al 2012 Lancho-Barrantes et al 2012) It is welldocumented that the proportion of high-impact papers grows as the number ofauthors increases ndash if the co-authors are from different countries the number of citationscan double compared to papers where the collaboration is undertaken in a singlecountry (Jeong Choi and Kim 2011) In fact the correlation between the number ofco-authorships in scientific papers and their subsequent impact (defined as thenumber of citations) is well documented in the literature (Basu and Aggarwall 2001Peclin et al 2012 Lancho-Barrantes et al 2012) A report from the Royal Society(Royal Society 2011) indicates that for papers published in 2008 a paper withauthors from one country was cited on average four times per year while paperswith authors from five different countries averaged 12 citations per year (RoyalSociety 2011 59 Fig 27) It is worth mentioning that these citations come not onlyfrom the collaborating countries but also from other countries as a result of thedissemination network (Lancho-Barrantes et al 2012) However several studieshave indicated an uneven pattern across countries institutions and subfields (Peclinet al 2012 Lancho-Barrantes et al 2012) The extent of multinational collaborationcan be strongly field-specific and there are significant differences in the productionof academic scientific papers between different regions and countries (Jaffe 2011)Different forms of international collaborations and different scientific disciplines canshow completely different patterns (Jaffe 2011 Peclin et al 2012 Schulz and Manga-notte 2012 Lancho-Barrantes et al 2012)

A fundamental public policy question that immediately arises is What are the mosteffective ways of sowing fruitful partnerships with colleagues from other countries andharvesting benefit for the scientific development of emerging regions Collaboration isoccurring more naturally as a result of increased opportunities for interactions withforeign colleagues in workshops conferences and symposia Also influential in facili-tating collaboration are the cultural affinity of researchers the existence of resourcesdirected towards cooperative study and additionally comparable levels of academicexcellence and technological development (Jeong Choi and Kim 2011) In recentyears the Internet and other information technology resources have clearly favored

406 M Knobel et al

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long-distance communication among scientists but evidence indicates that most of thecollaboration begins only after the parties have established personal contact (JeongChoi and Kim 2011)

Despite clear evidence that cooperation can be beneficial to productivity andimpact there is a long way to go before all partnerships work smoothly Too often mis-understandings different jargon unrealistic expectations mismatched capabilities andexcessive bureaucracy undermine steps to create effective cooperation These obstaclesusually lead to frustration wasted resources and missed opportunities

A report from the Global Science Forum of the Organization for EconomicCooperation and Development (OECD) provides a valuable overview of good practiceas well as concrete suggestions for improving the collaboration scenario (OECD 2011)The report indicates a set of practical experiences including both successes and fail-ures It stresses the contribution of collaborative work in building the research capacityof each partner which is considered an important measure by funding agencies Thereport also emphasizes the need to achieve lsquoan optimal balance between the imperativesof research (bottom-up initiatives peer review etc) with top-down strategic develop-ment prioritiesrsquo (OECD 2011) It also points out that any potential collaboration needsto pay attention from the beginning to how results will be evaluated ndash whether in scien-tific or in social terms ndash and how outcomes will be communicated to policy makers andthe general public Other issues in the report are less obvious but just as important Forexample the report highlights the importance of a supporting policy environment forresearch collaboration stressing the role governments can play in providing supportthat can minimize bureaucracy Simultaneously it warns of the dangers of relying onpolitical backing particularly in unstable situations where such patronage can disappearovernight with a change in government (Dickson 2011)

The complexity of the subject will be best served by focusing the scope of thepresent work on a case study and experience from an important emerging countryWe will discuss some data on the insertion of Brazil into the international scientific col-laboration scenario Starting from the Ibero-American perspective we will situate thecontext where Brazil lies In particular we will discuss in some detail the exampleof the State of Satildeo Paulo which is responsible for around 50 of the scientific pro-duction of the country from three important research universities (University of SatildeoPaulo ndash USP University of Campinas ndash Unicamp and State University of Satildeo Paulondash Unesp) Furthermore in this case the main research agency of the state FAPESPis undergoing an unprecedented internationalization process and we will mentionsome strategies that this particular agency is pursuing in order to increase internationalpresence in the science produced in Satildeo Paulo

Rankings

The increasing popularity of university rankings reflects interesting changes that areoccurring in higher education (Sadlak and Liu 2007 Kehm and Stensaker 2009)Such rankings which have spurred debate regarding quality and performance ofhigher education institutions have had a considerable impact on the higher educationsector In turn the world rankings have also heightened global competition The mosthighly reputed international rankings are ARWU (Shanghai Universityrsquos AcademicRanking of World Universities) QS World Academic Rankings and the TimesHigher Education World University Rankings Despite their intensive use mainly inthe heart of research universities university rankings remain controversial

Studies in Higher Education 407

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The established rankings strive for lsquoobjectiversquo inputs and the final position of eachuniversity strongly depends on the metrics and indicators chosen and how they areweighed One clear bias of rankings is the focus on easily obtainable data regardingpublications (and their corresponding impact) at the expense of other important dimen-sions of university activities (Van Raan 2005 Harvey 2008) Also it is worth notingthat the above-mentioned rankings publish indicators for about 500 universitieswhich account for 1ndash2 of the total number of global institutions The methodologyemployed has also an important effect on the results when absolute numbers areused large universities have an obvious advantage On the other hand when relativeindicators are applied small and specialized research universities are privileged (DeFilippo et al 2012)

Another important parameter is the age of the university Indeed very recently twoof the main world university rankings have launched a different ranking taking intoaccount just universities under 50 years old In this case it is interesting to observethe appearance of a new trend where many developing countries have invested inhigher education during the last few decades and have begun to form a solid base ofresearch universities

The growing importance of university rankings has had a fundamental role in theresearch collaboration landscape There are many advantages in the model of the so-called lsquobig sciencersquo both from the perspective of fundamental problems that couldno longer be investigated in the bench of usual laboratories and also from the perspec-tive of developing and less-developed countries (see for example Giudice [2012] whodiscusses specifically the case of the Large Hadron Collider) However there are alsomany criticisms of the lsquobig sciencersquomodel which are relevant to our present discussionSome of these criticisms were anticipated by Alvin M Weinberg in an influential essay(where the term lsquobig sciencersquo was coined Weinberg 1961) Although he was referringto the space program his arguments work for any gigantic project He wonderedwhether lsquobig sciencersquo was ruining science itself Among his points there were somecriticisms regarding the necessity of public support and therefore requiring a degreeof lsquopublic marketingrsquo to justify the financing of a project He also pointed out thatsuch huge projects need oversight by large administrative bodies whose agenda maydeviate from purely scientific objectives Quoting his words lsquoUnfortunately sciencedominated by administrators is science understood by administrators and suchscience quickly becomes attenuated if not meaninglessrsquo (Weinberg 1961 162)Indeed many of his concerns are still valid and should be under constant observationfrom agencies universities and researchers Generally speaking participation in inter-national research collaborations must be done in the interest of science itself and theformation of highly qualified individuals and never for the purpose of increasing thenumber of citations

Some extra points should be added to Weinbergrsquos concerns nowadays many inter-national projects are financed by a consortium of different countries that pay fees inorder to participate in the construction and operation of the proposed experimentsand share the use of the equipment and participate in data analysis From the perspec-tive of developing countries it is always important to question the priorities in theresearch agenda as well as the costndashbenefit ratio Obviously this point is directlyrelated to the role of each group in the project whether it is central or just peripheraland what critical mass of scientists would benefit from participation The key questionthat arises is the real benefit to the country as a result of the formation of future scientificleaders the consolidation of a sustainable group of well-formed scientists and the

408 M Knobel et al

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construction of a solid base for the scientific community capable of producing world-class science achievements Naturally this analysis is extremely difficult and probablynot yet viable to perform owing to the infancy of the research in scientometry and thedefinition of many of the basic goals For example it is a challenge even to define alsquoscientific leaderrsquo (see an interesting proposal by Matsas 2012)

The above discussion illustrates some of the issues raised by the increasing influ-ence of world rankings and their effects on the collaboration network of research uni-versities There are many aspects of the above discussion that still need further studyand debate but it is clear that strategic decisions and public policies must take intoaccount the inherent complexity of these issues in order to remain or become competi-tive in the worldwide research arena

The RampD landscape in Ibero-America

Ibero-America is defined here as the sum of Latin America the Caribbean Portugal andSpain1 It is home to 96 of the world population (UNESCO Institute for Statistics[UIS] 2010) and produces 108 of the global gross domestic product (GNP)However the region accounts for only 48 of the global expenditure on researchand development (RampD) In Ibero-America the intensity of the RampD expenditure isonly 08 of the regional GNP which translates to one-third of the intensity of devel-oped countries and slightly less than half of the 18 observed in the European Union

The Ibero-American Gross Expenditure on RampD (GERD) is concentrated in threecountries Data from UNESCO (UIS 2010) show that Brazil accounts for 37 of theregional expenditure on RampD Spain accounts for 33 and Mexico for 11 Theseare followed by Portugal at PPP$ 29 billion (54 of the regionrsquos GERD)

The RampD intensity for a set of Ibero-American countries is shown in Figure 1 Onlyfor Spain Portugal and Brazil is the RampD intensity larger than 10 of the GNP

As can be seen in Figure 2 the trend in RampD expenditure in the principal countriesof the region shows two different behaviors For the Latin American countries the trendreflects stagnation or slight growth in the case of Brazil and Argentina For Portugal andSpain the trend reflects strong growth remarkable in the former case It is worth men-tioning that these data relate to years prior to the economic crisis of the last few yearswhich may affect these figures

The composition of the RampD expenditures according to the source of funds in someIbero-American countries is shown in Table 1 As a comparison consider that theaverage for OECD countries is that 65 of the RampD expenditures in 2008 werefinanced by private business In Korea and Japan this percentage was as high as 73and 78 respectively while in the USA it was 67

Limited industry participation in the funding of RampD in Ibero-America reflects inthe weakness of the technology sector in the region as evidenced by the nationaltrade imbalances as well as by other indicators such as the annual number of patentsgranted The stagnation of investment in RampD is at least partially attributable to thelackluster efforts of the corporate sector In most countries in regions where expendi-tures for RampD have grown the growth has been driven by industry investment inresearch aimed at increasing competitiveness in international markets In LatinAmerica the limited push on public policies to penetrate global markets has decreasedthe incentive for entrepreneurial innovation Other factors that have had a significantinfluence in Latin America include economic instability and changes in tax regulationsas well as limited protection of intellectual property rights

Studies in Higher Education 409

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The number of active researchers is also comparatively low in Ibero-America Thenumber of researchers per million inhabitants is 652 for Ibero-America as a whole thehigh points being Spain and Portugal with around 2700 researchers per millionnumbers that fall quickly for the Latin American part of Ibero-America 980 for Argentina657 for Brazil and 305 for Mexico These numbers are quite low compared to 4654 for

Figure 1 RampD intensity in Ibero-American countries in 2009 (Source Red de Indicadores deCiencia y Tecnologiacutea [RICYT] wwwricytorg)

Figure 2 Recent trends in RampD expenditure in the principal Ibero-American economies(Source RICYT)

410 M Knobel et al

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Union Mercosur) and engagement of eacutemigreacute researchers with their country of originamong others

Research universities play a fundamental role in this discussion because the cultureof international collaboration is usually well established and because of the high stan-dards they set for research In fact the so-called world-class universities are constantlylooking to enhance their level of internationalization mainly through faculty andstudent exchange programs as well as international agreements with partner univer-sities (Altbach and Salmi 2011) Thus most quality assessment done of universitiesnowadays considers international engagement a very important quality proxy This isthe case of the controversial but fairly well-established international rankings Mostof the rankings are designed to evaluate research universities and take into accountthe degree of internationalization in terms of international faculty members inter-national reputation and international students among other parameters It is worthnoting that the main input of the rankings is typically the number and impact ofpublished papers and a further parameter is related to the international visibility ofthe publication (ie it should be published in journals of international circulationusually in English and with as much international cooperation as possible)

Generally speaking several bibliometric studies have shown that papers withauthors from multiple countries tend to be cited more frequently than domestic orsingle-country papers (Peclin et al 2012 Lancho-Barrantes et al 2012) It is welldocumented that the proportion of high-impact papers grows as the number ofauthors increases ndash if the co-authors are from different countries the number of citationscan double compared to papers where the collaboration is undertaken in a singlecountry (Jeong Choi and Kim 2011) In fact the correlation between the number ofco-authorships in scientific papers and their subsequent impact (defined as thenumber of citations) is well documented in the literature (Basu and Aggarwall 2001Peclin et al 2012 Lancho-Barrantes et al 2012) A report from the Royal Society(Royal Society 2011) indicates that for papers published in 2008 a paper withauthors from one country was cited on average four times per year while paperswith authors from five different countries averaged 12 citations per year (RoyalSociety 2011 59 Fig 27) It is worth mentioning that these citations come not onlyfrom the collaborating countries but also from other countries as a result of thedissemination network (Lancho-Barrantes et al 2012) However several studieshave indicated an uneven pattern across countries institutions and subfields (Peclinet al 2012 Lancho-Barrantes et al 2012) The extent of multinational collaborationcan be strongly field-specific and there are significant differences in the productionof academic scientific papers between different regions and countries (Jaffe 2011)Different forms of international collaborations and different scientific disciplines canshow completely different patterns (Jaffe 2011 Peclin et al 2012 Schulz and Manga-notte 2012 Lancho-Barrantes et al 2012)

A fundamental public policy question that immediately arises is What are the mosteffective ways of sowing fruitful partnerships with colleagues from other countries andharvesting benefit for the scientific development of emerging regions Collaboration isoccurring more naturally as a result of increased opportunities for interactions withforeign colleagues in workshops conferences and symposia Also influential in facili-tating collaboration are the cultural affinity of researchers the existence of resourcesdirected towards cooperative study and additionally comparable levels of academicexcellence and technological development (Jeong Choi and Kim 2011) In recentyears the Internet and other information technology resources have clearly favored

406 M Knobel et al

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

Del

Ros

ario

] at

08

21 2

9 O

ctob

er 2

013

long-distance communication among scientists but evidence indicates that most of thecollaboration begins only after the parties have established personal contact (JeongChoi and Kim 2011)

Despite clear evidence that cooperation can be beneficial to productivity andimpact there is a long way to go before all partnerships work smoothly Too often mis-understandings different jargon unrealistic expectations mismatched capabilities andexcessive bureaucracy undermine steps to create effective cooperation These obstaclesusually lead to frustration wasted resources and missed opportunities

A report from the Global Science Forum of the Organization for EconomicCooperation and Development (OECD) provides a valuable overview of good practiceas well as concrete suggestions for improving the collaboration scenario (OECD 2011)The report indicates a set of practical experiences including both successes and fail-ures It stresses the contribution of collaborative work in building the research capacityof each partner which is considered an important measure by funding agencies Thereport also emphasizes the need to achieve lsquoan optimal balance between the imperativesof research (bottom-up initiatives peer review etc) with top-down strategic develop-ment prioritiesrsquo (OECD 2011) It also points out that any potential collaboration needsto pay attention from the beginning to how results will be evaluated ndash whether in scien-tific or in social terms ndash and how outcomes will be communicated to policy makers andthe general public Other issues in the report are less obvious but just as important Forexample the report highlights the importance of a supporting policy environment forresearch collaboration stressing the role governments can play in providing supportthat can minimize bureaucracy Simultaneously it warns of the dangers of relying onpolitical backing particularly in unstable situations where such patronage can disappearovernight with a change in government (Dickson 2011)

The complexity of the subject will be best served by focusing the scope of thepresent work on a case study and experience from an important emerging countryWe will discuss some data on the insertion of Brazil into the international scientific col-laboration scenario Starting from the Ibero-American perspective we will situate thecontext where Brazil lies In particular we will discuss in some detail the exampleof the State of Satildeo Paulo which is responsible for around 50 of the scientific pro-duction of the country from three important research universities (University of SatildeoPaulo ndash USP University of Campinas ndash Unicamp and State University of Satildeo Paulondash Unesp) Furthermore in this case the main research agency of the state FAPESPis undergoing an unprecedented internationalization process and we will mentionsome strategies that this particular agency is pursuing in order to increase internationalpresence in the science produced in Satildeo Paulo

Rankings

The increasing popularity of university rankings reflects interesting changes that areoccurring in higher education (Sadlak and Liu 2007 Kehm and Stensaker 2009)Such rankings which have spurred debate regarding quality and performance ofhigher education institutions have had a considerable impact on the higher educationsector In turn the world rankings have also heightened global competition The mosthighly reputed international rankings are ARWU (Shanghai Universityrsquos AcademicRanking of World Universities) QS World Academic Rankings and the TimesHigher Education World University Rankings Despite their intensive use mainly inthe heart of research universities university rankings remain controversial

Studies in Higher Education 407

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

Del

Ros

ario

] at

08

21 2

9 O

ctob

er 2

013

The established rankings strive for lsquoobjectiversquo inputs and the final position of eachuniversity strongly depends on the metrics and indicators chosen and how they areweighed One clear bias of rankings is the focus on easily obtainable data regardingpublications (and their corresponding impact) at the expense of other important dimen-sions of university activities (Van Raan 2005 Harvey 2008) Also it is worth notingthat the above-mentioned rankings publish indicators for about 500 universitieswhich account for 1ndash2 of the total number of global institutions The methodologyemployed has also an important effect on the results when absolute numbers areused large universities have an obvious advantage On the other hand when relativeindicators are applied small and specialized research universities are privileged (DeFilippo et al 2012)

Another important parameter is the age of the university Indeed very recently twoof the main world university rankings have launched a different ranking taking intoaccount just universities under 50 years old In this case it is interesting to observethe appearance of a new trend where many developing countries have invested inhigher education during the last few decades and have begun to form a solid base ofresearch universities

The growing importance of university rankings has had a fundamental role in theresearch collaboration landscape There are many advantages in the model of the so-called lsquobig sciencersquo both from the perspective of fundamental problems that couldno longer be investigated in the bench of usual laboratories and also from the perspec-tive of developing and less-developed countries (see for example Giudice [2012] whodiscusses specifically the case of the Large Hadron Collider) However there are alsomany criticisms of the lsquobig sciencersquomodel which are relevant to our present discussionSome of these criticisms were anticipated by Alvin M Weinberg in an influential essay(where the term lsquobig sciencersquo was coined Weinberg 1961) Although he was referringto the space program his arguments work for any gigantic project He wonderedwhether lsquobig sciencersquo was ruining science itself Among his points there were somecriticisms regarding the necessity of public support and therefore requiring a degreeof lsquopublic marketingrsquo to justify the financing of a project He also pointed out thatsuch huge projects need oversight by large administrative bodies whose agenda maydeviate from purely scientific objectives Quoting his words lsquoUnfortunately sciencedominated by administrators is science understood by administrators and suchscience quickly becomes attenuated if not meaninglessrsquo (Weinberg 1961 162)Indeed many of his concerns are still valid and should be under constant observationfrom agencies universities and researchers Generally speaking participation in inter-national research collaborations must be done in the interest of science itself and theformation of highly qualified individuals and never for the purpose of increasing thenumber of citations

Some extra points should be added to Weinbergrsquos concerns nowadays many inter-national projects are financed by a consortium of different countries that pay fees inorder to participate in the construction and operation of the proposed experimentsand share the use of the equipment and participate in data analysis From the perspec-tive of developing countries it is always important to question the priorities in theresearch agenda as well as the costndashbenefit ratio Obviously this point is directlyrelated to the role of each group in the project whether it is central or just peripheraland what critical mass of scientists would benefit from participation The key questionthat arises is the real benefit to the country as a result of the formation of future scientificleaders the consolidation of a sustainable group of well-formed scientists and the

408 M Knobel et al

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

Del

Ros

ario

] at

08

21 2

9 O

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er 2

013

construction of a solid base for the scientific community capable of producing world-class science achievements Naturally this analysis is extremely difficult and probablynot yet viable to perform owing to the infancy of the research in scientometry and thedefinition of many of the basic goals For example it is a challenge even to define alsquoscientific leaderrsquo (see an interesting proposal by Matsas 2012)

The above discussion illustrates some of the issues raised by the increasing influ-ence of world rankings and their effects on the collaboration network of research uni-versities There are many aspects of the above discussion that still need further studyand debate but it is clear that strategic decisions and public policies must take intoaccount the inherent complexity of these issues in order to remain or become competi-tive in the worldwide research arena

The RampD landscape in Ibero-America

Ibero-America is defined here as the sum of Latin America the Caribbean Portugal andSpain1 It is home to 96 of the world population (UNESCO Institute for Statistics[UIS] 2010) and produces 108 of the global gross domestic product (GNP)However the region accounts for only 48 of the global expenditure on researchand development (RampD) In Ibero-America the intensity of the RampD expenditure isonly 08 of the regional GNP which translates to one-third of the intensity of devel-oped countries and slightly less than half of the 18 observed in the European Union

The Ibero-American Gross Expenditure on RampD (GERD) is concentrated in threecountries Data from UNESCO (UIS 2010) show that Brazil accounts for 37 of theregional expenditure on RampD Spain accounts for 33 and Mexico for 11 Theseare followed by Portugal at PPP$ 29 billion (54 of the regionrsquos GERD)

The RampD intensity for a set of Ibero-American countries is shown in Figure 1 Onlyfor Spain Portugal and Brazil is the RampD intensity larger than 10 of the GNP

As can be seen in Figure 2 the trend in RampD expenditure in the principal countriesof the region shows two different behaviors For the Latin American countries the trendreflects stagnation or slight growth in the case of Brazil and Argentina For Portugal andSpain the trend reflects strong growth remarkable in the former case It is worth men-tioning that these data relate to years prior to the economic crisis of the last few yearswhich may affect these figures

The composition of the RampD expenditures according to the source of funds in someIbero-American countries is shown in Table 1 As a comparison consider that theaverage for OECD countries is that 65 of the RampD expenditures in 2008 werefinanced by private business In Korea and Japan this percentage was as high as 73and 78 respectively while in the USA it was 67

Limited industry participation in the funding of RampD in Ibero-America reflects inthe weakness of the technology sector in the region as evidenced by the nationaltrade imbalances as well as by other indicators such as the annual number of patentsgranted The stagnation of investment in RampD is at least partially attributable to thelackluster efforts of the corporate sector In most countries in regions where expendi-tures for RampD have grown the growth has been driven by industry investment inresearch aimed at increasing competitiveness in international markets In LatinAmerica the limited push on public policies to penetrate global markets has decreasedthe incentive for entrepreneurial innovation Other factors that have had a significantinfluence in Latin America include economic instability and changes in tax regulationsas well as limited protection of intellectual property rights

Studies in Higher Education 409

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nloa

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by [

Uni

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idad

Del

Ros

ario

] at

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21 2

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013

The number of active researchers is also comparatively low in Ibero-America Thenumber of researchers per million inhabitants is 652 for Ibero-America as a whole thehigh points being Spain and Portugal with around 2700 researchers per millionnumbers that fall quickly for the Latin American part of Ibero-America 980 for Argentina657 for Brazil and 305 for Mexico These numbers are quite low compared to 4654 for

Figure 1 RampD intensity in Ibero-American countries in 2009 (Source Red de Indicadores deCiencia y Tecnologiacutea [RICYT] wwwricytorg)

Figure 2 Recent trends in RampD expenditure in the principal Ibero-American economies(Source RICYT)

410 M Knobel et al

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Uni

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idad

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Ros

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013

long-distance communication among scientists but evidence indicates that most of thecollaboration begins only after the parties have established personal contact (JeongChoi and Kim 2011)

Despite clear evidence that cooperation can be beneficial to productivity andimpact there is a long way to go before all partnerships work smoothly Too often mis-understandings different jargon unrealistic expectations mismatched capabilities andexcessive bureaucracy undermine steps to create effective cooperation These obstaclesusually lead to frustration wasted resources and missed opportunities

A report from the Global Science Forum of the Organization for EconomicCooperation and Development (OECD) provides a valuable overview of good practiceas well as concrete suggestions for improving the collaboration scenario (OECD 2011)The report indicates a set of practical experiences including both successes and fail-ures It stresses the contribution of collaborative work in building the research capacityof each partner which is considered an important measure by funding agencies Thereport also emphasizes the need to achieve lsquoan optimal balance between the imperativesof research (bottom-up initiatives peer review etc) with top-down strategic develop-ment prioritiesrsquo (OECD 2011) It also points out that any potential collaboration needsto pay attention from the beginning to how results will be evaluated ndash whether in scien-tific or in social terms ndash and how outcomes will be communicated to policy makers andthe general public Other issues in the report are less obvious but just as important Forexample the report highlights the importance of a supporting policy environment forresearch collaboration stressing the role governments can play in providing supportthat can minimize bureaucracy Simultaneously it warns of the dangers of relying onpolitical backing particularly in unstable situations where such patronage can disappearovernight with a change in government (Dickson 2011)

The complexity of the subject will be best served by focusing the scope of thepresent work on a case study and experience from an important emerging countryWe will discuss some data on the insertion of Brazil into the international scientific col-laboration scenario Starting from the Ibero-American perspective we will situate thecontext where Brazil lies In particular we will discuss in some detail the exampleof the State of Satildeo Paulo which is responsible for around 50 of the scientific pro-duction of the country from three important research universities (University of SatildeoPaulo ndash USP University of Campinas ndash Unicamp and State University of Satildeo Paulondash Unesp) Furthermore in this case the main research agency of the state FAPESPis undergoing an unprecedented internationalization process and we will mentionsome strategies that this particular agency is pursuing in order to increase internationalpresence in the science produced in Satildeo Paulo

Rankings

The increasing popularity of university rankings reflects interesting changes that areoccurring in higher education (Sadlak and Liu 2007 Kehm and Stensaker 2009)Such rankings which have spurred debate regarding quality and performance ofhigher education institutions have had a considerable impact on the higher educationsector In turn the world rankings have also heightened global competition The mosthighly reputed international rankings are ARWU (Shanghai Universityrsquos AcademicRanking of World Universities) QS World Academic Rankings and the TimesHigher Education World University Rankings Despite their intensive use mainly inthe heart of research universities university rankings remain controversial

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The established rankings strive for lsquoobjectiversquo inputs and the final position of eachuniversity strongly depends on the metrics and indicators chosen and how they areweighed One clear bias of rankings is the focus on easily obtainable data regardingpublications (and their corresponding impact) at the expense of other important dimen-sions of university activities (Van Raan 2005 Harvey 2008) Also it is worth notingthat the above-mentioned rankings publish indicators for about 500 universitieswhich account for 1ndash2 of the total number of global institutions The methodologyemployed has also an important effect on the results when absolute numbers areused large universities have an obvious advantage On the other hand when relativeindicators are applied small and specialized research universities are privileged (DeFilippo et al 2012)

Another important parameter is the age of the university Indeed very recently twoof the main world university rankings have launched a different ranking taking intoaccount just universities under 50 years old In this case it is interesting to observethe appearance of a new trend where many developing countries have invested inhigher education during the last few decades and have begun to form a solid base ofresearch universities

The growing importance of university rankings has had a fundamental role in theresearch collaboration landscape There are many advantages in the model of the so-called lsquobig sciencersquo both from the perspective of fundamental problems that couldno longer be investigated in the bench of usual laboratories and also from the perspec-tive of developing and less-developed countries (see for example Giudice [2012] whodiscusses specifically the case of the Large Hadron Collider) However there are alsomany criticisms of the lsquobig sciencersquomodel which are relevant to our present discussionSome of these criticisms were anticipated by Alvin M Weinberg in an influential essay(where the term lsquobig sciencersquo was coined Weinberg 1961) Although he was referringto the space program his arguments work for any gigantic project He wonderedwhether lsquobig sciencersquo was ruining science itself Among his points there were somecriticisms regarding the necessity of public support and therefore requiring a degreeof lsquopublic marketingrsquo to justify the financing of a project He also pointed out thatsuch huge projects need oversight by large administrative bodies whose agenda maydeviate from purely scientific objectives Quoting his words lsquoUnfortunately sciencedominated by administrators is science understood by administrators and suchscience quickly becomes attenuated if not meaninglessrsquo (Weinberg 1961 162)Indeed many of his concerns are still valid and should be under constant observationfrom agencies universities and researchers Generally speaking participation in inter-national research collaborations must be done in the interest of science itself and theformation of highly qualified individuals and never for the purpose of increasing thenumber of citations

Some extra points should be added to Weinbergrsquos concerns nowadays many inter-national projects are financed by a consortium of different countries that pay fees inorder to participate in the construction and operation of the proposed experimentsand share the use of the equipment and participate in data analysis From the perspec-tive of developing countries it is always important to question the priorities in theresearch agenda as well as the costndashbenefit ratio Obviously this point is directlyrelated to the role of each group in the project whether it is central or just peripheraland what critical mass of scientists would benefit from participation The key questionthat arises is the real benefit to the country as a result of the formation of future scientificleaders the consolidation of a sustainable group of well-formed scientists and the

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construction of a solid base for the scientific community capable of producing world-class science achievements Naturally this analysis is extremely difficult and probablynot yet viable to perform owing to the infancy of the research in scientometry and thedefinition of many of the basic goals For example it is a challenge even to define alsquoscientific leaderrsquo (see an interesting proposal by Matsas 2012)

The above discussion illustrates some of the issues raised by the increasing influ-ence of world rankings and their effects on the collaboration network of research uni-versities There are many aspects of the above discussion that still need further studyand debate but it is clear that strategic decisions and public policies must take intoaccount the inherent complexity of these issues in order to remain or become competi-tive in the worldwide research arena

The RampD landscape in Ibero-America

Ibero-America is defined here as the sum of Latin America the Caribbean Portugal andSpain1 It is home to 96 of the world population (UNESCO Institute for Statistics[UIS] 2010) and produces 108 of the global gross domestic product (GNP)However the region accounts for only 48 of the global expenditure on researchand development (RampD) In Ibero-America the intensity of the RampD expenditure isonly 08 of the regional GNP which translates to one-third of the intensity of devel-oped countries and slightly less than half of the 18 observed in the European Union

The Ibero-American Gross Expenditure on RampD (GERD) is concentrated in threecountries Data from UNESCO (UIS 2010) show that Brazil accounts for 37 of theregional expenditure on RampD Spain accounts for 33 and Mexico for 11 Theseare followed by Portugal at PPP$ 29 billion (54 of the regionrsquos GERD)

The RampD intensity for a set of Ibero-American countries is shown in Figure 1 Onlyfor Spain Portugal and Brazil is the RampD intensity larger than 10 of the GNP

As can be seen in Figure 2 the trend in RampD expenditure in the principal countriesof the region shows two different behaviors For the Latin American countries the trendreflects stagnation or slight growth in the case of Brazil and Argentina For Portugal andSpain the trend reflects strong growth remarkable in the former case It is worth men-tioning that these data relate to years prior to the economic crisis of the last few yearswhich may affect these figures

The composition of the RampD expenditures according to the source of funds in someIbero-American countries is shown in Table 1 As a comparison consider that theaverage for OECD countries is that 65 of the RampD expenditures in 2008 werefinanced by private business In Korea and Japan this percentage was as high as 73and 78 respectively while in the USA it was 67

Limited industry participation in the funding of RampD in Ibero-America reflects inthe weakness of the technology sector in the region as evidenced by the nationaltrade imbalances as well as by other indicators such as the annual number of patentsgranted The stagnation of investment in RampD is at least partially attributable to thelackluster efforts of the corporate sector In most countries in regions where expendi-tures for RampD have grown the growth has been driven by industry investment inresearch aimed at increasing competitiveness in international markets In LatinAmerica the limited push on public policies to penetrate global markets has decreasedthe incentive for entrepreneurial innovation Other factors that have had a significantinfluence in Latin America include economic instability and changes in tax regulationsas well as limited protection of intellectual property rights

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The number of active researchers is also comparatively low in Ibero-America Thenumber of researchers per million inhabitants is 652 for Ibero-America as a whole thehigh points being Spain and Portugal with around 2700 researchers per millionnumbers that fall quickly for the Latin American part of Ibero-America 980 for Argentina657 for Brazil and 305 for Mexico These numbers are quite low compared to 4654 for

Figure 1 RampD intensity in Ibero-American countries in 2009 (Source Red de Indicadores deCiencia y Tecnologiacutea [RICYT] wwwricytorg)

Figure 2 Recent trends in RampD expenditure in the principal Ibero-American economies(Source RICYT)

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The established rankings strive for lsquoobjectiversquo inputs and the final position of eachuniversity strongly depends on the metrics and indicators chosen and how they areweighed One clear bias of rankings is the focus on easily obtainable data regardingpublications (and their corresponding impact) at the expense of other important dimen-sions of university activities (Van Raan 2005 Harvey 2008) Also it is worth notingthat the above-mentioned rankings publish indicators for about 500 universitieswhich account for 1ndash2 of the total number of global institutions The methodologyemployed has also an important effect on the results when absolute numbers areused large universities have an obvious advantage On the other hand when relativeindicators are applied small and specialized research universities are privileged (DeFilippo et al 2012)

Another important parameter is the age of the university Indeed very recently twoof the main world university rankings have launched a different ranking taking intoaccount just universities under 50 years old In this case it is interesting to observethe appearance of a new trend where many developing countries have invested inhigher education during the last few decades and have begun to form a solid base ofresearch universities

The growing importance of university rankings has had a fundamental role in theresearch collaboration landscape There are many advantages in the model of the so-called lsquobig sciencersquo both from the perspective of fundamental problems that couldno longer be investigated in the bench of usual laboratories and also from the perspec-tive of developing and less-developed countries (see for example Giudice [2012] whodiscusses specifically the case of the Large Hadron Collider) However there are alsomany criticisms of the lsquobig sciencersquomodel which are relevant to our present discussionSome of these criticisms were anticipated by Alvin M Weinberg in an influential essay(where the term lsquobig sciencersquo was coined Weinberg 1961) Although he was referringto the space program his arguments work for any gigantic project He wonderedwhether lsquobig sciencersquo was ruining science itself Among his points there were somecriticisms regarding the necessity of public support and therefore requiring a degreeof lsquopublic marketingrsquo to justify the financing of a project He also pointed out thatsuch huge projects need oversight by large administrative bodies whose agenda maydeviate from purely scientific objectives Quoting his words lsquoUnfortunately sciencedominated by administrators is science understood by administrators and suchscience quickly becomes attenuated if not meaninglessrsquo (Weinberg 1961 162)Indeed many of his concerns are still valid and should be under constant observationfrom agencies universities and researchers Generally speaking participation in inter-national research collaborations must be done in the interest of science itself and theformation of highly qualified individuals and never for the purpose of increasing thenumber of citations

Some extra points should be added to Weinbergrsquos concerns nowadays many inter-national projects are financed by a consortium of different countries that pay fees inorder to participate in the construction and operation of the proposed experimentsand share the use of the equipment and participate in data analysis From the perspec-tive of developing countries it is always important to question the priorities in theresearch agenda as well as the costndashbenefit ratio Obviously this point is directlyrelated to the role of each group in the project whether it is central or just peripheraland what critical mass of scientists would benefit from participation The key questionthat arises is the real benefit to the country as a result of the formation of future scientificleaders the consolidation of a sustainable group of well-formed scientists and the

408 M Knobel et al

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construction of a solid base for the scientific community capable of producing world-class science achievements Naturally this analysis is extremely difficult and probablynot yet viable to perform owing to the infancy of the research in scientometry and thedefinition of many of the basic goals For example it is a challenge even to define alsquoscientific leaderrsquo (see an interesting proposal by Matsas 2012)

The above discussion illustrates some of the issues raised by the increasing influ-ence of world rankings and their effects on the collaboration network of research uni-versities There are many aspects of the above discussion that still need further studyand debate but it is clear that strategic decisions and public policies must take intoaccount the inherent complexity of these issues in order to remain or become competi-tive in the worldwide research arena

The RampD landscape in Ibero-America

Ibero-America is defined here as the sum of Latin America the Caribbean Portugal andSpain1 It is home to 96 of the world population (UNESCO Institute for Statistics[UIS] 2010) and produces 108 of the global gross domestic product (GNP)However the region accounts for only 48 of the global expenditure on researchand development (RampD) In Ibero-America the intensity of the RampD expenditure isonly 08 of the regional GNP which translates to one-third of the intensity of devel-oped countries and slightly less than half of the 18 observed in the European Union

The Ibero-American Gross Expenditure on RampD (GERD) is concentrated in threecountries Data from UNESCO (UIS 2010) show that Brazil accounts for 37 of theregional expenditure on RampD Spain accounts for 33 and Mexico for 11 Theseare followed by Portugal at PPP$ 29 billion (54 of the regionrsquos GERD)

The RampD intensity for a set of Ibero-American countries is shown in Figure 1 Onlyfor Spain Portugal and Brazil is the RampD intensity larger than 10 of the GNP

As can be seen in Figure 2 the trend in RampD expenditure in the principal countriesof the region shows two different behaviors For the Latin American countries the trendreflects stagnation or slight growth in the case of Brazil and Argentina For Portugal andSpain the trend reflects strong growth remarkable in the former case It is worth men-tioning that these data relate to years prior to the economic crisis of the last few yearswhich may affect these figures

The composition of the RampD expenditures according to the source of funds in someIbero-American countries is shown in Table 1 As a comparison consider that theaverage for OECD countries is that 65 of the RampD expenditures in 2008 werefinanced by private business In Korea and Japan this percentage was as high as 73and 78 respectively while in the USA it was 67

Limited industry participation in the funding of RampD in Ibero-America reflects inthe weakness of the technology sector in the region as evidenced by the nationaltrade imbalances as well as by other indicators such as the annual number of patentsgranted The stagnation of investment in RampD is at least partially attributable to thelackluster efforts of the corporate sector In most countries in regions where expendi-tures for RampD have grown the growth has been driven by industry investment inresearch aimed at increasing competitiveness in international markets In LatinAmerica the limited push on public policies to penetrate global markets has decreasedthe incentive for entrepreneurial innovation Other factors that have had a significantinfluence in Latin America include economic instability and changes in tax regulationsas well as limited protection of intellectual property rights

Studies in Higher Education 409

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The number of active researchers is also comparatively low in Ibero-America Thenumber of researchers per million inhabitants is 652 for Ibero-America as a whole thehigh points being Spain and Portugal with around 2700 researchers per millionnumbers that fall quickly for the Latin American part of Ibero-America 980 for Argentina657 for Brazil and 305 for Mexico These numbers are quite low compared to 4654 for

Figure 1 RampD intensity in Ibero-American countries in 2009 (Source Red de Indicadores deCiencia y Tecnologiacutea [RICYT] wwwricytorg)

Figure 2 Recent trends in RampD expenditure in the principal Ibero-American economies(Source RICYT)

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construction of a solid base for the scientific community capable of producing world-class science achievements Naturally this analysis is extremely difficult and probablynot yet viable to perform owing to the infancy of the research in scientometry and thedefinition of many of the basic goals For example it is a challenge even to define alsquoscientific leaderrsquo (see an interesting proposal by Matsas 2012)

The above discussion illustrates some of the issues raised by the increasing influ-ence of world rankings and their effects on the collaboration network of research uni-versities There are many aspects of the above discussion that still need further studyand debate but it is clear that strategic decisions and public policies must take intoaccount the inherent complexity of these issues in order to remain or become competi-tive in the worldwide research arena

The RampD landscape in Ibero-America

Ibero-America is defined here as the sum of Latin America the Caribbean Portugal andSpain1 It is home to 96 of the world population (UNESCO Institute for Statistics[UIS] 2010) and produces 108 of the global gross domestic product (GNP)However the region accounts for only 48 of the global expenditure on researchand development (RampD) In Ibero-America the intensity of the RampD expenditure isonly 08 of the regional GNP which translates to one-third of the intensity of devel-oped countries and slightly less than half of the 18 observed in the European Union

The Ibero-American Gross Expenditure on RampD (GERD) is concentrated in threecountries Data from UNESCO (UIS 2010) show that Brazil accounts for 37 of theregional expenditure on RampD Spain accounts for 33 and Mexico for 11 Theseare followed by Portugal at PPP$ 29 billion (54 of the regionrsquos GERD)

The RampD intensity for a set of Ibero-American countries is shown in Figure 1 Onlyfor Spain Portugal and Brazil is the RampD intensity larger than 10 of the GNP

As can be seen in Figure 2 the trend in RampD expenditure in the principal countriesof the region shows two different behaviors For the Latin American countries the trendreflects stagnation or slight growth in the case of Brazil and Argentina For Portugal andSpain the trend reflects strong growth remarkable in the former case It is worth men-tioning that these data relate to years prior to the economic crisis of the last few yearswhich may affect these figures

The composition of the RampD expenditures according to the source of funds in someIbero-American countries is shown in Table 1 As a comparison consider that theaverage for OECD countries is that 65 of the RampD expenditures in 2008 werefinanced by private business In Korea and Japan this percentage was as high as 73and 78 respectively while in the USA it was 67

Limited industry participation in the funding of RampD in Ibero-America reflects inthe weakness of the technology sector in the region as evidenced by the nationaltrade imbalances as well as by other indicators such as the annual number of patentsgranted The stagnation of investment in RampD is at least partially attributable to thelackluster efforts of the corporate sector In most countries in regions where expendi-tures for RampD have grown the growth has been driven by industry investment inresearch aimed at increasing competitiveness in international markets In LatinAmerica the limited push on public policies to penetrate global markets has decreasedthe incentive for entrepreneurial innovation Other factors that have had a significantinfluence in Latin America include economic instability and changes in tax regulationsas well as limited protection of intellectual property rights

Studies in Higher Education 409

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The number of active researchers is also comparatively low in Ibero-America Thenumber of researchers per million inhabitants is 652 for Ibero-America as a whole thehigh points being Spain and Portugal with around 2700 researchers per millionnumbers that fall quickly for the Latin American part of Ibero-America 980 for Argentina657 for Brazil and 305 for Mexico These numbers are quite low compared to 4654 for

Figure 1 RampD intensity in Ibero-American countries in 2009 (Source Red de Indicadores deCiencia y Tecnologiacutea [RICYT] wwwricytorg)

Figure 2 Recent trends in RampD expenditure in the principal Ibero-American economies(Source RICYT)

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The number of active researchers is also comparatively low in Ibero-America Thenumber of researchers per million inhabitants is 652 for Ibero-America as a whole thehigh points being Spain and Portugal with around 2700 researchers per millionnumbers that fall quickly for the Latin American part of Ibero-America 980 for Argentina657 for Brazil and 305 for Mexico These numbers are quite low compared to 4654 for

Figure 1 RampD intensity in Ibero-American countries in 2009 (Source Red de Indicadores deCiencia y Tecnologiacutea [RICYT] wwwricytorg)

Figure 2 Recent trends in RampD expenditure in the principal Ibero-American economies(Source RICYT)

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North America 2727 for the European Union and 1071 for China (Centro Interuniversi-tario de Desarrollo [CINDA] 2007)

In terms of scientific articles Ibero-America fares somewhat better than it does for theother indicators as shown in Table 2 As a region its share in the world total of science

Table 1 Relative composition of RampD expenditures by funding sector in selected Ibero-American countries Source RICYT (all data refer to 2008 with the exception of those related toChile which refer to 2004)

By Source Higher Education Business Foreign Government Non-Profit

Portugal 36 481 30 437 17Chile 08 458 87 444 03Spain 00 455 70 470 05Mexico 32 446 14 507 01Brazil 22 439 00 540 00Colombia 265 271 44 393 28Argentina 44 265 06 676 09

Table 2 Scientific articles in SampE fields authored in Ibero-America and some selected Ibero-American countries Source Science and Engineering Indicators 2012 Appendix Table 5-27

SampE articles ISI 1995 2009

RegionCountry Qtv Qtv World 5646447 100 7883470 100Iberoamerica 218272 387 497432 631Spain 113159 200 215426 273Portugal 9903 018 41565 053CentralSouth America 95210 169 240441 305Brazil 34361 061 123063 156Mexico 19373 034 41277 052Argentina 19672 035 36552 046Chile 8886 016 18678 024Venezuela 4373 008 3535 005Colombia 1623 003 6084 008Cuba 1678 003 2224 003Uruguay 1034 002 2462 003Peru 651 001 1586 002Costa Rica 658 001 983 001Panama 353 001 726 001Trinidad and Tobago 483 001 477 001Ecuador 343 001 675 001Bolivia 239 000 452 001Jamaica 700 001 508 001Guatemala 195 000 221 000Barbados 165 000 126 000Other CSo America 421 001 812 001

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and engineering (SampE) articles grew from 387 to 631 between 1995 and 2009 whilethe total number of articles grew by 128 almost three times higher than the worldaverage of 40 for the same period The number of articles originating from Braziland Portugal grew by 272 those from Mexico by 113 and from Spain by 904

This is consistent with the composition of RampD investment in the region which isstrongly biased toward expenditure at the state level typically supporting basic researchin academic institutions However there are some noteworthy exceptions Industry RampDhas been responsible for some impressive achievements in Spain in the area of telecom-munications and energy In Chile there have been major findings in biotechnology andaquaculture whereas scientists in Argentina have made important discoveries in the fieldof information technology In Cuba the biotechnological industry is responsible since theestablishment of techniques at laboratory level to the final product for commercialization(Centro de Ingenieriacutea Geneacutetica y Biotecnologiacutea de Cuba [CIGB] 2012) Finally notableexceptions also occur in Brazil especially in oil exploration and production by PetroacuteleoBrasileiro SA (PETROBRAS 2012) as well as in aeronautics by Empresa Brasileira deAeronaacuteutica SA (EMBRAER 2012) agribusiness by Empresa Brasileira de PesquisaAgropecuaacuteria (EMBRAPA 2012) health science by Instituto Nacional de Cacircncer(INCA 2012) Instituto Butantan (BUTANTAN 2012) Fundaccedilatildeo Oswaldo Cruz(FIOCRUZ 2012) and others Still one of the main challenges for the Ibero-Americancountries appears to be the creation a macroeconomic environment that would allowthe private sector to become fully engaged in technological innovation

Higher education in Ibero-America

In 2008 higher education institutions in Ibero-American countries graduated 19million students in all fields (source RICYT) Seven countries in Ibero-Americaaccount for 83 of the graduates Brazil Mexico Venezuela Colombia ArgentinaSpain and Portugal with Brazil alone accounting for 41

Four countries dominate the formation of doctoral scientists Brazil (41) Spain(28) Mexico (16) and Portugal (6) totaling 91 of the doctorates awarded inIbero-America

A measure of the coverage of graduates across society is indicated by the ratiobetween the number of graduates and the total population This indicator variesbroadly across Ibero-American countries The highest values are for Costa RicaCuba and Portugal for which the ratio is above 6000 graduates per million inhabitantsFor Venezuela Ecuador Brazil Chile and Mexico the ratio is between 3000 and 4000while for the other countries it is below 2400 graduates per million inhabitants

One of the challenges for Ibero-American universities is represented by the fact thatnone of them appear among the top 100 of the Academic Ranking of World Univer-sities (ARWU) prepared annually by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (seeTable 3) Only three countries ndash Brazil (University of Satildeo Paulo) Argentina (Universityof Buenos Aires) and Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autoacutenoma de Mexico) have insti-tutions ranked in the top 200 Spain has several institutions listed however all of themare in the top 300 or below It is worth noting some interesting results from new rank-ings that take into account the age of the universities Table 4 shows some of the Ibero-American universities that appeared in the Times Higher Education 100 under 50ranking which aims to rank the 100 best universities under the age of 50 The tablealso shows results of the QS Top 50 under 50 which lists the universities that have

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been established since 1962 according to their position in the QS World UniversitiesRankings

In 1975 the total enrollment in universities in Ibero-America was 3981 million stu-dents By 2008 the total had climbed to 15606 million a growth by a factor of almostfour (RICYT database) The extraordinary expansion of higher education in Ibero-America creates large opportunities for research and for universityndashindustry researchcooperation

One of the main limitations for the quality of higher education in Ibero-America isthe relatively low participation of the faculty in research shown in Table 5 While inSpain and Portugal close to 40 of the teaching staff are researchers in the othercountries in Ibero-America this percentage is below 20

In Ibero-American countries universities account for 65ndash95 of the scientificarticles published in international journals when compared to industry and researchinstitutes The 25 universities with the largest number of articles published from2006 to 2010 are shown in Figure 3 They include 13 from Spain 7 from Brazil 2from Portugal and one from each of Mexico Argentina and Chile

Education (including tertiary education) in Latin American countries has a longhistory that includes the institutionalization of science Each country built scientific com-munities earlier than many countries in the developing world Nevertheless the supportfor science is unpredictable and for more than half a century relations between the statesociety and the scientific community have been complicated full of sound and fury andleading to harsh treatment of technicians and scientists (low wages unemployment oftenpersecution) This led to a severe brain drain a pattern that has become difficult toreverse An interesting example can be illustrated by a detailed study of the foreign resi-dents holding a degree in Science and Engineering and living in the USA in 2003(Mouton and Waast 2009a) By the year 2000 Latin America provided about 200000degree holders to the United States ndash nearly half coming from South America and halffrom Central America and the Caribbean Among them 30 worked in the RampDsector These are high numbers if compared to those working in their home countryin the same sector (Mouton and Waast 2009b) For a complete and detailed analysisand comparisons with other regions of the world see (Mouton and Waast 2009)

Higher education and research in Brazil

The Brazilian population is 195 million inhabitants distributed in 27 states and in morethan five thousand cities and the country currently has the worldrsquos seventh largest gross

Table 3 Classification of Ibero-American countries according to their universities rankedamong the 500 best in the Academic Ranking of World Universities by the Shanghai Jiao TongUniversity Source httpwwwshanghairankingcomARWU- Statistics-2012html

CoRk CountryTop20

Top100

Top200

Top300

Top400

Top500

21 Brazil mdash mdash 1 2 5 624 Argentina mdash mdash 1 1 1 125 Mexico mdash mdash 1 1 1 126 Spain mdash mdash mdash 3 7 1133 Portugal mdash mdash mdash mdash 1 337 Chile mdash mdash mdash mdash mdash 2

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and engineering (SampE) articles grew from 387 to 631 between 1995 and 2009 whilethe total number of articles grew by 128 almost three times higher than the worldaverage of 40 for the same period The number of articles originating from Braziland Portugal grew by 272 those from Mexico by 113 and from Spain by 904

This is consistent with the composition of RampD investment in the region which isstrongly biased toward expenditure at the state level typically supporting basic researchin academic institutions However there are some noteworthy exceptions Industry RampDhas been responsible for some impressive achievements in Spain in the area of telecom-munications and energy In Chile there have been major findings in biotechnology andaquaculture whereas scientists in Argentina have made important discoveries in the fieldof information technology In Cuba the biotechnological industry is responsible since theestablishment of techniques at laboratory level to the final product for commercialization(Centro de Ingenieriacutea Geneacutetica y Biotecnologiacutea de Cuba [CIGB] 2012) Finally notableexceptions also occur in Brazil especially in oil exploration and production by PetroacuteleoBrasileiro SA (PETROBRAS 2012) as well as in aeronautics by Empresa Brasileira deAeronaacuteutica SA (EMBRAER 2012) agribusiness by Empresa Brasileira de PesquisaAgropecuaacuteria (EMBRAPA 2012) health science by Instituto Nacional de Cacircncer(INCA 2012) Instituto Butantan (BUTANTAN 2012) Fundaccedilatildeo Oswaldo Cruz(FIOCRUZ 2012) and others Still one of the main challenges for the Ibero-Americancountries appears to be the creation a macroeconomic environment that would allowthe private sector to become fully engaged in technological innovation

Higher education in Ibero-America

In 2008 higher education institutions in Ibero-American countries graduated 19million students in all fields (source RICYT) Seven countries in Ibero-Americaaccount for 83 of the graduates Brazil Mexico Venezuela Colombia ArgentinaSpain and Portugal with Brazil alone accounting for 41

Four countries dominate the formation of doctoral scientists Brazil (41) Spain(28) Mexico (16) and Portugal (6) totaling 91 of the doctorates awarded inIbero-America

A measure of the coverage of graduates across society is indicated by the ratiobetween the number of graduates and the total population This indicator variesbroadly across Ibero-American countries The highest values are for Costa RicaCuba and Portugal for which the ratio is above 6000 graduates per million inhabitantsFor Venezuela Ecuador Brazil Chile and Mexico the ratio is between 3000 and 4000while for the other countries it is below 2400 graduates per million inhabitants

One of the challenges for Ibero-American universities is represented by the fact thatnone of them appear among the top 100 of the Academic Ranking of World Univer-sities (ARWU) prepared annually by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (seeTable 3) Only three countries ndash Brazil (University of Satildeo Paulo) Argentina (Universityof Buenos Aires) and Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autoacutenoma de Mexico) have insti-tutions ranked in the top 200 Spain has several institutions listed however all of themare in the top 300 or below It is worth noting some interesting results from new rank-ings that take into account the age of the universities Table 4 shows some of the Ibero-American universities that appeared in the Times Higher Education 100 under 50ranking which aims to rank the 100 best universities under the age of 50 The tablealso shows results of the QS Top 50 under 50 which lists the universities that have

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been established since 1962 according to their position in the QS World UniversitiesRankings

In 1975 the total enrollment in universities in Ibero-America was 3981 million stu-dents By 2008 the total had climbed to 15606 million a growth by a factor of almostfour (RICYT database) The extraordinary expansion of higher education in Ibero-America creates large opportunities for research and for universityndashindustry researchcooperation

One of the main limitations for the quality of higher education in Ibero-America isthe relatively low participation of the faculty in research shown in Table 5 While inSpain and Portugal close to 40 of the teaching staff are researchers in the othercountries in Ibero-America this percentage is below 20

In Ibero-American countries universities account for 65ndash95 of the scientificarticles published in international journals when compared to industry and researchinstitutes The 25 universities with the largest number of articles published from2006 to 2010 are shown in Figure 3 They include 13 from Spain 7 from Brazil 2from Portugal and one from each of Mexico Argentina and Chile

Education (including tertiary education) in Latin American countries has a longhistory that includes the institutionalization of science Each country built scientific com-munities earlier than many countries in the developing world Nevertheless the supportfor science is unpredictable and for more than half a century relations between the statesociety and the scientific community have been complicated full of sound and fury andleading to harsh treatment of technicians and scientists (low wages unemployment oftenpersecution) This led to a severe brain drain a pattern that has become difficult toreverse An interesting example can be illustrated by a detailed study of the foreign resi-dents holding a degree in Science and Engineering and living in the USA in 2003(Mouton and Waast 2009a) By the year 2000 Latin America provided about 200000degree holders to the United States ndash nearly half coming from South America and halffrom Central America and the Caribbean Among them 30 worked in the RampDsector These are high numbers if compared to those working in their home countryin the same sector (Mouton and Waast 2009b) For a complete and detailed analysisand comparisons with other regions of the world see (Mouton and Waast 2009)

Higher education and research in Brazil

The Brazilian population is 195 million inhabitants distributed in 27 states and in morethan five thousand cities and the country currently has the worldrsquos seventh largest gross

Table 3 Classification of Ibero-American countries according to their universities rankedamong the 500 best in the Academic Ranking of World Universities by the Shanghai Jiao TongUniversity Source httpwwwshanghairankingcomARWU- Statistics-2012html

CoRk CountryTop20

Top100

Top200

Top300

Top400

Top500

21 Brazil mdash mdash 1 2 5 624 Argentina mdash mdash 1 1 1 125 Mexico mdash mdash 1 1 1 126 Spain mdash mdash mdash 3 7 1133 Portugal mdash mdash mdash mdash 1 337 Chile mdash mdash mdash mdash mdash 2

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been established since 1962 according to their position in the QS World UniversitiesRankings

In 1975 the total enrollment in universities in Ibero-America was 3981 million stu-dents By 2008 the total had climbed to 15606 million a growth by a factor of almostfour (RICYT database) The extraordinary expansion of higher education in Ibero-America creates large opportunities for research and for universityndashindustry researchcooperation

One of the main limitations for the quality of higher education in Ibero-America isthe relatively low participation of the faculty in research shown in Table 5 While inSpain and Portugal close to 40 of the teaching staff are researchers in the othercountries in Ibero-America this percentage is below 20

In Ibero-American countries universities account for 65ndash95 of the scientificarticles published in international journals when compared to industry and researchinstitutes The 25 universities with the largest number of articles published from2006 to 2010 are shown in Figure 3 They include 13 from Spain 7 from Brazil 2from Portugal and one from each of Mexico Argentina and Chile

Education (including tertiary education) in Latin American countries has a longhistory that includes the institutionalization of science Each country built scientific com-munities earlier than many countries in the developing world Nevertheless the supportfor science is unpredictable and for more than half a century relations between the statesociety and the scientific community have been complicated full of sound and fury andleading to harsh treatment of technicians and scientists (low wages unemployment oftenpersecution) This led to a severe brain drain a pattern that has become difficult toreverse An interesting example can be illustrated by a detailed study of the foreign resi-dents holding a degree in Science and Engineering and living in the USA in 2003(Mouton and Waast 2009a) By the year 2000 Latin America provided about 200000degree holders to the United States ndash nearly half coming from South America and halffrom Central America and the Caribbean Among them 30 worked in the RampDsector These are high numbers if compared to those working in their home countryin the same sector (Mouton and Waast 2009b) For a complete and detailed analysisand comparisons with other regions of the world see (Mouton and Waast 2009)

Higher education and research in Brazil

The Brazilian population is 195 million inhabitants distributed in 27 states and in morethan five thousand cities and the country currently has the worldrsquos seventh largest gross

Table 3 Classification of Ibero-American countries according to their universities rankedamong the 500 best in the Academic Ranking of World Universities by the Shanghai Jiao TongUniversity Source httpwwwshanghairankingcomARWU- Statistics-2012html

CoRk CountryTop20

Top100

Top200

Top300

Top400

Top500

21 Brazil mdash mdash 1 2 5 624 Argentina mdash mdash 1 1 1 125 Mexico mdash mdash 1 1 1 126 Spain mdash mdash mdash 3 7 1133 Portugal mdash mdash mdash mdash 1 337 Chile mdash mdash mdash mdash mdash 2

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Table 4 Top 50 under 50 Top 100 under 50 and QS and Times Higher Education World Rankings for Ibero-American universities Sources httpeuropenxtbookcomnxteutsl100under50indexphp8 and httpcontentqscomtopuniversitiesQS_Top_50_under_5 0pdf

Top 50Under 50

Top 100Under 50

QS 2011Rk

THE WorldUnivRk Institution Country Year Founded Teaching Research Citations

39 17 308 186 Pompeu FabraUniversity

Spain 1990 281 198 876

14 24 194 201-225 AutonomousUniversity ofBarcelona

Spain 1968 359 308 579

22 44 235 276-300 University ofCampinas

Brazil 1966 596 364 152

19 49 222 276-300 AutonomousUniversity of Madrid

Spain 1968 322 239 475

- 66 - 301-350 Aveiro University Portugal 1973 213 222 409- 74 - 351-400 Polytechnic

University ofValencia

Spain 1971 244 119 453

- 85 - 351-400 New University ofLisbon

Portugal 1973 23 155 283

50 - 347 - Carlos III Universityof Madri

Spain 1989 - - -

- 86 - 351-400 PolytechnicUniversity ofCatalonia

Spain 1971 274 147 233

- 99 - - Sao Paulo StateUniversity

Brazil 1976 30 206 8

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domestic product (GDP) (approximately 21 trillion dollars) The participation of statesin GDP is not uniform and finds great concentration in southeastern Brazil which in2010 represented 554 of the total In this concentration 331 was due to theState of Satildeo Paulo which has kept this average contribution for more than eightyears (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatiacutestica [IBGE] 2012) This is also reflectedin the science production Satildeo Paulo State being responsible for almost 50 of Brazi-lian science production

Brazil has a very distinct higher educational system with a relatively small numberof public (federal state or municipality) research universities and a large number ofprivate institutions both philanthropicconfessional and profit-oriented There are cur-rently approximately 59 million students enrolled in higher education undergraduateprograms in the country with 77 of these enrolled in private institutions

The first universities of the country were structured in the 1930s but only after animportant educational reform in 1968 were several characteristics of the North Amer-ican higher education system introduced including masterrsquos degrees and doctoral pro-grams This reform was accompanied by the creation or expansion of many agencies tosupport research both on federal and state levels Among these agencies are two withinthe Ministry of Science and Technology the National Council for Scientific andTechnological Development (CNPq) that provides scholarships and resources for indi-vidual research projects and the Studies and Projects Finance Organization (FINEP)intended to finance large-scale projects infrastructure and innovation The Ministryof Education incorporates the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education(CAPES) which provides graduate scholarships and evaluates graduate study programsin Brazil

There are also state agencies that support research and offer scholarships One impor-tant example is Satildeo Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) The State of Satildeo Paulo pro-duces roughly 50 of the published papers and is responsible for 45 of the PhD thesesof the country In Satildeo Paulo the constitution establishes that 1 of the state final rev-enues belong to FAPESP This funding model gives the foundation stability and auton-omy to a level not duplicated elsewhere in Latin America In 2011 FAPESP receivedaround $530 million from public revenues and 20600 research proposals Projectschosen for funding were selected by a peer-review system The average turnaroundtime for a proposal was 74 days and the overall success rate 45 Other states inBrazil have similar foundations Even though none of them have the same resources

Table 5 Percentage of faculty that is active in research for some Ibero-American countriesSource UNESCO Institute for Statistics

CountryTeachingStaff

FTE Researchers inHigher Education Res

Argentina 176810 16825 10Brazil 367638 70917 19Chile 54649 0 0Colombia 88337 4964 6Mexico 274618 13569 5Portugal 36069 13114 36Spain 144091 58813 41Venezuela 122525 4015 3

Studies in Higher Education 415

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as FAPESP the total annual expenditures of state-funded research foundations in Brazilare larger than that of the National Research Council (CNPq)2

Despite its expansion the public system has not grown rapidly enough to accom-modate the growing demand for higher education which has been in fact absorbedby private institutions Nowadays approximately 77 of enrollment in higher edu-cation programs in Brazil is in private institutions (two-thirds of that total are in for-profit institutions) most of them of questionable quality

The graduate system is quite well structured with a consolidated evaluation systemorganized by CAPES and with more than 2800 masterrsquos and 1700 PhD programs

Figure 3 Number of scientific articles published by the 25 most prolific universities in Ibero-America (Source SCImago Institutional Rankings httpwwwscimagoircompdfranking_iberoamericano_2012pdf)

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as FAPESP the total annual expenditures of state-funded research foundations in Brazilare larger than that of the National Research Council (CNPq)2

Despite its expansion the public system has not grown rapidly enough to accom-modate the growing demand for higher education which has been in fact absorbedby private institutions Nowadays approximately 77 of enrollment in higher edu-cation programs in Brazil is in private institutions (two-thirds of that total are in for-profit institutions) most of them of questionable quality

The graduate system is quite well structured with a consolidated evaluation systemorganized by CAPES and with more than 2800 masterrsquos and 1700 PhD programs

Figure 3 Number of scientific articles published by the 25 most prolific universities in Ibero-America (Source SCImago Institutional Rankings httpwwwscimagoircompdfranking_iberoamericano_2012pdf)

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More than 78000 PhDs and 24000 masterrsquos degree certificates were awarded in 2011in all areas of knowledge (GEOCAPES [database of the Coordination for the Improve-ment of Higher Education] 2011) Of these total graduate students 80 were in publicuniversities and one-third were in the state of Satildeo Paulo

The development of a graduate system was instrumental to develop an academicresearch base in the country The number of active research groups and of internationalpublications has grown steadily for the last 40 years but there are important challengesin the quality and international competitiveness of the research endeavor Increasedresearch productivity in Brazil is evidenced by the number of articles published inISI Web of Science indexed journals for example which has increased by 18 inthe last few years In 2010 Brazil ranked thirteenth in the number of articles (approxi-mately 45200 articles) which represents 21 of the indexed articles produced in theworld (SJR [SCImago Journal amp Country Rank] 2010)

In fact Brazil leads the production of articles among the countries with higherscientific productivity in Latin America having published 94622 papers between2008 and 2010 in international scientific journals indexed by Web of Science asshown in Figure 4

The growth of the Brazilian research base coupled with Brazilrsquos economic stabilityand positive international visibility brings the country to a more competitive level inhigher education and research appearing on the map of possibilities for youngpeople considering foreign exchange study programs

In fact as happens in other countries the visibility of the scientific achievementsoriginating in Brazil is strongly affected by participation in international collaborationsPublished co-authored papers from 1980 to 1998 have had twice the number of cita-tions compared to those without international partnerships (Leta and Brito Cruz2003) One important challenge to Brazilian science is to reverse the trend of diminish-ing international collaborations Since 1996 the intensity of scientific collaboration ofBrazilian researchers has decreased as shown in Figure 5 In 1995 39 of the scientific

Figure 4 Production by year of articles proceedings letters and reviews published by someLatin American countries and the State of Satildeo Paulo based on Web of Science (Sourcehttpwwwfapespbrindicadoresboletim3pdf)

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papers authored at Brazilian institutions had at least one-co-author from anothercountry while in 2010 this figure was reduced to 25 It is worth noting that thistrend runs counter to other data shown in the same figure where the intensity of collab-oration has increased to 40ndash50 of the total of papers for each country (Germany UKArgentina and Spain) It is worth mentioning that since 2008 the main scientific inter-national databases have included a larger number of journals published in Brazil inwhich most of the authors are Brazilians but with few international partnerships More-over the decrease in international collaborations may be a negative side-effect of thesuccess of the Brazilian graduate system as the system was able to accommodatemore students the number of students sent abroad to conclude PhD theses was signifi-cantly reduced diminishing opportunities to cultivate international relationships

Finally the recent expansion of the Brazilian higher education system can also be afactor because there are more jobs available in the academy discouraging the pursuit ofinternational post-doctoral experience for example Both facts lead to a reduction ofcontact with international networks for Brazilian researchers

NorthndashSouth cooperations in Brazil and RampD in private and state-ownedcompanies

The term NorthndashSouth is commonly defined as a political and socio-economic divisionbetween currently developed countries (geographically situated mostly in the northernhemisphere) and developing ones (mostly situated in the southern hemisphere) and thatbasically succeeds from the terms First and Third World employed during the ColdWar with the Second World represented by the socialist countries (Reuveny and

Figure 5 Percentage of scientific papers with co-authors from other countries for papers withauthors from Germany UK Argentina Spain and Brazil (data from SCImago Journal ampCountry Ranking 2011 in httpwwwscimagojrcomcountrysearchphpcountry=BR[ArSpGeUK])

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Thompson 2007) Despite the geopolitical nature of categorization the term lsquoNorthndashSouthrsquo is used with some caveats including in the context of research since countrieslike South Africa Brazil China and India are home to both high-level research insti-tutions (categorizing them as North members) and institutions deficient in humanresources and facilities Furthermore in the scientific research context this term maybe more compromised if one considers that many Southern researchers have soughttraining and career in the North and in some fields a growing number of Northernresearchers have joined Southern institutions The cooperation between researchersof the northern and southern hemispheres beyond the aforementioned Big Sciencecontext are of supreme importance for the production of new knowledge that generatesinformation for policy development (Bradley 2008) In addition to the benefits that mayaccrue from NorthndashSouth partnerships there are obstacles such as linguistic barriersunequal access to financial resources and libraries and the lack of publishing opportu-nities including editorial prejudice (Victora and Moreira 2006) which can be anobstacle to the process of collaboration The process of agenda setting in particularcan be a notorious obstacle in cases of domination of collaboration agendas motivatedby the collaborators from the North (Bradley 2008)

Research universities and research networks

There are currently many initiatives aimed at raising the intensity of internationalresearch collaboration and student andor faculty mobility in Brazil Such initiativesmay come from a single university with specific strategic plans or can include bilateralor multilateral agreements among different universities andor funding agencies withcalls for proposals from international entities related to universities or science anddevelopment (for example Academy of Sciences for the Developing World ndash

TWAS International Association of Universities ndash IAU among others) Also thereare several international networks for research proposals and mobility with specificgoals or specific profiles Most of these networks have as members research universitiesof regional or international importance Examples include the Worldwide UniversitiesNetwork (international) Asociacioacuten de Universidades Grupo Montevideo (regional inSouth America) Coimbra Group (regional in Europe) Grupo Tordesillas (BrazilndashPor-tugalndashSpain) GrupoMagallanes (Ibero-America) among others These groups are veryimportant because they congregate universities with similar profiles and aims and theystimulate the debate and exchange of ideas through meetings workshops and specificmobility calls Evidently each research university defines its own priorities from theperspective of long-term cooperation bilateral projects with partner groups andor uni-versities are usually seen as lsquobest practicersquo

With the rush for internationalization it is now quite common to see as the result ofvisits hundreds of memorandums of understanding signed by universities without aneffective result in terms of research improvement or student exchange Generally speak-ing it is usually better for the university to choose just a few international partners inorder to build a sustainable long-term relationship As in any relationship it is hard tofind good and trustworthy partners and maintaining the collaboration while alsostrengthening it year after year demands considerable attention Also it is worth stres-sing that the stronger collaborations are rooted in research teams working togethersomething that sometimes takes years to develop because this depends on humanrelationships that have common research goals NorthndashSouth collaborations withtheir various merits and challenges feature highly in the published literature

Studies in Higher Education 419

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(Egwang 2008) Unfortunately there are still only a few multi-country collaborationsamong countries in the South working together these are mainly in regard to healthsystems (Osama 2008) As a matter of fact the experiences of many practitioners inless developed countries would be uniquely suited to assist scale-up efforts in otherlow-income countries with similar cultures and challenges (Ivers et al 2010)

Brazil has observed a boom in international research opportunities For many yearsBrazilian agencies such as CAPES and CNPq have had annual calls for bilateral pro-jects with different countries There are also regular programs for research collabor-ations and specific calls for specific research fields Besides public support there areadditional opportunities supported by private groups or NGOs such as SantanderBankrsquos mobility program and Fundaccedilatildeo Estudarrsquos studying-abroad program just tomention two examples It is now fairly well known that in the last few years studentmobility from Brazil has drastically increased with the launch of the Sciencewithout Borders program This audacious program has called the attention of foreignuniversities to Brazilian higher education system mainly for recruiting opportunitiesAlthough there are some criticisms of the program (Knobel 2012) it is expected thatit will be an important force in increasing the degree of internationalization of Brazilianuniversities with a direct consequence in research collaborations

It is worth mentioning that in Brazil there have been international collaborationswith the North structured with the aim of attacking scientific challenges of great mag-nitude such as astronomical observation and elementary particle physics The Euro-pean Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) where the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)was built much in the news since its start of operation in 2010 illustrates this typeof effort in which dozens of countries contribute some annuities with several milliondollars for the construction and operation of particle accelerators ever larger andmore powerful The costs involved in this type of research cannot be borne by anyone country alone and collaboration is the natural route facilitated by the fundamentalcharacter of the research In the LHC there are teams from Satildeo Paulo funded byFAPESP that contribute to the analysis of data available for making this a lsquoclusterrsquoof computers installed at UNESP An agreement between FAPESP and CERNassures that Satildeo Paulo researchers can fully participate on committees that plan theexperiments

Another interesting example is the Pierre Auger Observatory3 co-financed byCNPq and FAPESP in cooperation with agencies from Argentina the United StatesGermany France the UK and several other countries studying the incidence of highenergy cosmic rays on the Earth seeking to identify their origin and characteristicsYet another example is the Southern Observatory for Astronomical ResearchSOAR4 where FAPESP and CNPq co-finance the participation of Brazilian astrono-mers who have a very important role in the project including developing instrumentsthat were installed in the main telescope at Cerro Pachon Chile One result of thegreater impact of SOAR was the observation of a supernova explosion so far awaythat the light from the explosion took 13 billion years to reach Earth Thus the research-ers observed an event occurring less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang (Haislipet al 2006) Another important collaboration in this field is the Gemini Telescope5

in which Brazil is a partnerMore recently an interesting illustration of good practices in supporting mobility

and international collaboration is the case of FAPESP International collaborationsare a fundamental part of the research effort and FAPESP has programs to supportresearch stays abroad as well as for bringing foreign visiting researchers to Brazil (in

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2011 FAPESP supported four visiting researchers per week) Also the agency sup-ports academic meetings and workshops in the state of Satildeo Paulo Starting in 2006the agency enacted collaboration agreements with foreign funding agencies andresearch institutions Presently there are more than 60 such agreements that generatedmore than 300 joint research projects that include exchange activities as well as fulljoint research programs6

In the last few years programs have expanded that support international collabor-ation Starting in 2011 all 12000 fellowship holders at FAPESP can choose to spendfrom four months to one year in a research laboratory or institution abroad doingwork related to their project in Brazil (Grant for Research Studies Abroad ndash BEPE)Students enrolled in undergraduate graduate and doctoral programs are eligible forthese grants The proposals submitted by participants must show that the internshipperiod abroad will contribute significantly to their research in Brazil

Another new program offered by FAPESP is for the organization of short durationcourses in advanced research in any area of knowledge in the state of Satildeo Paulo Theseare the Satildeo Paulo Schools of Advanced Sciences (SPSAS) Each SPSAS offers 1ndash2-week courses in advanced themes in science and technology contributing to the for-mation of the young participants Through this initiative FAPESP expects to establisha globally competitive hub for talented young researchers The SPSAS lecturers arescientists with excellent qualifications prominent in their research fields includinginvited foreign scientists The students must be enrolled in undergraduate or graduateprograms and 50 of them must be international students being potential candidatesfor masterrsquos doctorate or post-doctoral programs in higher education and research insti-tutes in the state of Sao Paulo

The third new program offered by FAPESP is the Satildeo Paulo Excellence Chairs(SPEC) In this program FAPESP offers support for top foreign scientists with perma-nent positions abroad who are willing to spend at least 12 weeks per year over a periodof at least 3 years leading a research project in a university or research institution in SatildeoPaulo Salary for the 12 weeks is paid by the host institution in Satildeo Paulo and fundingfor the research costs comes from FAPESP The foreign scientist does not have to leavehisher job and can obtain additional funds for other ideas that heshe might want todevelop in the state of Satildeo Paulo

Concluding remarks

Public policies funding agencies and universities need to take into account the inherentcomplexity of building capacity to generate knowledge through cross-country researchNorthndashSouth collaboration can be strengthened through further involvement of devel-oped countries in funding supporting and leading research in developing countriesHowever SouthndashSouth collaborations also need to be strengthened through innovativestrategies Institutions in upper-middle-income countries that currently possess the mostcapacity for developing comparative research can been encouraged and supported to leadresearch involving lower-income countries This involvement can ensure not onlyincreased (and better distributed) technical capacity but also amore appropriate researchprocess and subsequently more policy impact (Block 2006) In any case the role ofresearch universities is central to this process in order to benefit the advancement ofscience and technology as well as the formation of a critical mass of researchers necess-ary to keep andor advance the development of each region or country An increase ofself-citation rates in almost all countries during the last decade (Jaffe 2011) calls for

Studies in Higher Education 421

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exploring science policies that will increase scientific and social impact including inter-national cooperation and science education with broader outlooks

However despite the various factors that favor collaboration there are challenges thatneed to be recognized Elements of exploitation can exist with a collaborative arrange-ment particularly when they involve partners of unequal scientific strength Sucharrangements can provide less benefit to the weaker partner especially if given a periph-eral role that will result in little improvement to capacity at the end of the project Afurther issue results from the fact that the greater the scientific strength of a countrythe greater the propensity to engage in international collaboration this can lead toforeign scientists playing an excessively dominant role in setting the research agendain a country that is scientifically weaker Also administrative and other costs ndash referredto as the lsquotransaction costsrsquo ndash of collaborating with partners in foreign countries can oftenbe high Such costs may be incurred by language differences and resulting communi-cation problems by bureaucratic and management differences and styles and by frustra-tions caused by travel restrictions and time required to obtain visas Each of thesepotential disadvantages must be carefully weighed against the potential benefits beforeany collaborative arrangement is undertaken (Oldham 2005 Bradley 2008)

Considering these aspects Ibero-America represents a unique case to investigate interms of science collaboration Most of the countries in the region have a long traditionof higher education and the academic culture is well established On the other handBrazil has been organizing and investing aggressively in the higher education sectorduring the last 60 years leading to an important evolution of science and innovationin this country Spain and Portugal have benefited from a long period of economicboom developing a good number of high quality research universities and researchcenters Because of the political instability and relative lack of support to the academicprofession many Latin American countries have suffered from massive brain drainalthough this has drastically decreased in recent years The advent of political stabilityand economic development contributed to the recognition of the importance of researchuniversities to the region This region has a large potential to develop science and tech-nology endeavors and to intensify its research collaborations In fact the cultural andlanguage differences represent only a limited barrier to the consolidation of strong linksfor common research agendas within Latin America

Paradoxically some Latin American countries displayed until recently a tendencyto insulate their research communities from the world Now it is more common inthe region to see institutional efforts towards international collaboration In Brazilthe lsquoScience without Bordersrsquo program as well as several actions currently availablefrom state agencies (such as the ones from FAPESP discussed in this text) wereenacted to reverse this tendency The results of such programs will be more clearlyevident in the next few years

With the improvement of scientific article databases has come the development ofstatistical tools as well as interested research groups studying the field of bibliographicstudies so that many aspects of this complex scenario will be elucidated in the comingyears Considering that there have been limited studies in this field until now thereremain many questions unanswered For example it would be interesting to understandhow individual authors acquire more recognition as a result of joint publication withinternationally recognized authors ie how the participation in international collabor-ation influences not only subsequent papers but also the establishment of scientific lea-dership and national and regional policies to form a solid ground where scientificexcellence can flourish and support development

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AcknowledgementsThe authors acknowledge the financial support by FAPESP (Brazil) They would also like tothank Liz Reisberg for the critical reading of the manuscript

Notes1 Other definitions exist but the exact definition will not change substantially the main con-

clusions of this paper nor the number discussed here2 CH Brito Cruz lsquoO apoio dos estados agrave pesquisa no Brasilrsquo presentation at the Brazilian

Biochemistry Society (June 2012)3 httpwwwaugerorg4 httpwwwsoartelescopeorg5 httpwwwgeminiedu6 httpwwwfapespbren5399

ReferencesAltbach Philip G and Jamil Salmi eds 2011 The road to academic excellence The making of

world-class research universities Washington DC The World BankBasu Aparna and Ritu Aggarwal 2001 International collaboration in science in India and its

impact on institutional performance Scientometrics 52 no 3 379ndash94Block and Miguel A Gonzaacutelez 2006 The state of international collaboration for health systems

research What do publications tell Health Research Policy and Systems 4 7 httpwwwncbinlmnihgovpmcarticlesPMC1569829

Bradley Megan 2008 On the agenda NorthndashSouth research partnerships and agenda-settingprocesses Development in Practice 18 no 6 673ndash85

BUTANTAN 2012 httpwwwbutantangovbrhomeCIGB 2012 httpwwwcigbeducuCINDA 2007 Educacioacuten Superior en Iberoameacuterica ndash Informe 2007 httpwwwcindaclhtm

p0607htmDe Filippo Daniela Fernando Casani Carlos Garciacutea-Zorita Preiddy Efraiacuten-Garciacutea and Eliacuteas

Sanz-Casado 2012 Visibility in international rankings Strategies for enhancing the com-petitiveness of Spanish universities Scientometrics (online first)

Dickson David 2011 How to get the best out of research collaboration SciDev httpwwwscidevneteneditorialshow-to-get-the-best-out-of-research-collaborationhtml

Egwang Thomas G 2008 Stable support needed for African malaria networks ScieDevNethttpwwwscidevnetenscience-and-innovation-policysouth-south-cooperationopinionsstable-support-needed-for-african-malaria-networkshtml

EMBRAER 2012 httpwwwembraercomen-USPagesHomeaspxEMBRAPA 2012 httpwwwembrapabrenglishFIOCRUZ 2012 httpportalfiocruzbrenhome_enGEOCAPES 2011 httpgeocapescapesgovbrgeocapesdsGiudice Gian Francesco 2012 Big science and the Large Hadron Collider Physics in

Perspective 14 no 1 95ndash112Haislip JB MC Nysewander DE Reichart A Levan N Tanvir S Cenko D B Fox et al

2006 A photometric redshift of z=639plusmn012 for GRB 050904 Nature 440 181ndash83Harvey Lee ed 2008 Rankings of higher education institutions A critical review InQuality in

Higher Education ed Lee Harvey 14 no 3 187ndash207IBGE 2010 httpwwwibgegovbrhomepresidencianoticiasnoticia_visualizaphpid_noticia=

2265ampid_pagina=1amptitulo=Regiao-Norte-aumenta-participacao-no-PIB-nacionalINCA 2012wwwincagovbrIvers Louise C Joia S Mukherjee Fernet R Leandre Jonas Rigodon Kimberly A Cullen and

Jennifer Furin 2010 SouthndashSouth collaboration in scale-up of HIV care Building humancapacity for care AIDS 24 73ndash78

Jaffe Klaus 2011 Do countries with lower self-citation rates produce higher impact papers Ordoes humility pay Interciencia 36 no 9 694ndash98

Studies in Higher Education 423

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(Egwang 2008) Unfortunately there are still only a few multi-country collaborationsamong countries in the South working together these are mainly in regard to healthsystems (Osama 2008) As a matter of fact the experiences of many practitioners inless developed countries would be uniquely suited to assist scale-up efforts in otherlow-income countries with similar cultures and challenges (Ivers et al 2010)

Brazil has observed a boom in international research opportunities For many yearsBrazilian agencies such as CAPES and CNPq have had annual calls for bilateral pro-jects with different countries There are also regular programs for research collabor-ations and specific calls for specific research fields Besides public support there areadditional opportunities supported by private groups or NGOs such as SantanderBankrsquos mobility program and Fundaccedilatildeo Estudarrsquos studying-abroad program just tomention two examples It is now fairly well known that in the last few years studentmobility from Brazil has drastically increased with the launch of the Sciencewithout Borders program This audacious program has called the attention of foreignuniversities to Brazilian higher education system mainly for recruiting opportunitiesAlthough there are some criticisms of the program (Knobel 2012) it is expected thatit will be an important force in increasing the degree of internationalization of Brazilianuniversities with a direct consequence in research collaborations

It is worth mentioning that in Brazil there have been international collaborationswith the North structured with the aim of attacking scientific challenges of great mag-nitude such as astronomical observation and elementary particle physics The Euro-pean Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) where the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)was built much in the news since its start of operation in 2010 illustrates this typeof effort in which dozens of countries contribute some annuities with several milliondollars for the construction and operation of particle accelerators ever larger andmore powerful The costs involved in this type of research cannot be borne by anyone country alone and collaboration is the natural route facilitated by the fundamentalcharacter of the research In the LHC there are teams from Satildeo Paulo funded byFAPESP that contribute to the analysis of data available for making this a lsquoclusterrsquoof computers installed at UNESP An agreement between FAPESP and CERNassures that Satildeo Paulo researchers can fully participate on committees that plan theexperiments

Another interesting example is the Pierre Auger Observatory3 co-financed byCNPq and FAPESP in cooperation with agencies from Argentina the United StatesGermany France the UK and several other countries studying the incidence of highenergy cosmic rays on the Earth seeking to identify their origin and characteristicsYet another example is the Southern Observatory for Astronomical ResearchSOAR4 where FAPESP and CNPq co-finance the participation of Brazilian astrono-mers who have a very important role in the project including developing instrumentsthat were installed in the main telescope at Cerro Pachon Chile One result of thegreater impact of SOAR was the observation of a supernova explosion so far awaythat the light from the explosion took 13 billion years to reach Earth Thus the research-ers observed an event occurring less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang (Haislipet al 2006) Another important collaboration in this field is the Gemini Telescope5

in which Brazil is a partnerMore recently an interesting illustration of good practices in supporting mobility

and international collaboration is the case of FAPESP International collaborationsare a fundamental part of the research effort and FAPESP has programs to supportresearch stays abroad as well as for bringing foreign visiting researchers to Brazil (in

420 M Knobel et al

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2011 FAPESP supported four visiting researchers per week) Also the agency sup-ports academic meetings and workshops in the state of Satildeo Paulo Starting in 2006the agency enacted collaboration agreements with foreign funding agencies andresearch institutions Presently there are more than 60 such agreements that generatedmore than 300 joint research projects that include exchange activities as well as fulljoint research programs6

In the last few years programs have expanded that support international collabor-ation Starting in 2011 all 12000 fellowship holders at FAPESP can choose to spendfrom four months to one year in a research laboratory or institution abroad doingwork related to their project in Brazil (Grant for Research Studies Abroad ndash BEPE)Students enrolled in undergraduate graduate and doctoral programs are eligible forthese grants The proposals submitted by participants must show that the internshipperiod abroad will contribute significantly to their research in Brazil

Another new program offered by FAPESP is for the organization of short durationcourses in advanced research in any area of knowledge in the state of Satildeo Paulo Theseare the Satildeo Paulo Schools of Advanced Sciences (SPSAS) Each SPSAS offers 1ndash2-week courses in advanced themes in science and technology contributing to the for-mation of the young participants Through this initiative FAPESP expects to establisha globally competitive hub for talented young researchers The SPSAS lecturers arescientists with excellent qualifications prominent in their research fields includinginvited foreign scientists The students must be enrolled in undergraduate or graduateprograms and 50 of them must be international students being potential candidatesfor masterrsquos doctorate or post-doctoral programs in higher education and research insti-tutes in the state of Sao Paulo

The third new program offered by FAPESP is the Satildeo Paulo Excellence Chairs(SPEC) In this program FAPESP offers support for top foreign scientists with perma-nent positions abroad who are willing to spend at least 12 weeks per year over a periodof at least 3 years leading a research project in a university or research institution in SatildeoPaulo Salary for the 12 weeks is paid by the host institution in Satildeo Paulo and fundingfor the research costs comes from FAPESP The foreign scientist does not have to leavehisher job and can obtain additional funds for other ideas that heshe might want todevelop in the state of Satildeo Paulo

Concluding remarks

Public policies funding agencies and universities need to take into account the inherentcomplexity of building capacity to generate knowledge through cross-country researchNorthndashSouth collaboration can be strengthened through further involvement of devel-oped countries in funding supporting and leading research in developing countriesHowever SouthndashSouth collaborations also need to be strengthened through innovativestrategies Institutions in upper-middle-income countries that currently possess the mostcapacity for developing comparative research can been encouraged and supported to leadresearch involving lower-income countries This involvement can ensure not onlyincreased (and better distributed) technical capacity but also amore appropriate researchprocess and subsequently more policy impact (Block 2006) In any case the role ofresearch universities is central to this process in order to benefit the advancement ofscience and technology as well as the formation of a critical mass of researchers necess-ary to keep andor advance the development of each region or country An increase ofself-citation rates in almost all countries during the last decade (Jaffe 2011) calls for

Studies in Higher Education 421

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idad

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Ros

ario

] at

08

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013

exploring science policies that will increase scientific and social impact including inter-national cooperation and science education with broader outlooks

However despite the various factors that favor collaboration there are challenges thatneed to be recognized Elements of exploitation can exist with a collaborative arrange-ment particularly when they involve partners of unequal scientific strength Sucharrangements can provide less benefit to the weaker partner especially if given a periph-eral role that will result in little improvement to capacity at the end of the project Afurther issue results from the fact that the greater the scientific strength of a countrythe greater the propensity to engage in international collaboration this can lead toforeign scientists playing an excessively dominant role in setting the research agendain a country that is scientifically weaker Also administrative and other costs ndash referredto as the lsquotransaction costsrsquo ndash of collaborating with partners in foreign countries can oftenbe high Such costs may be incurred by language differences and resulting communi-cation problems by bureaucratic and management differences and styles and by frustra-tions caused by travel restrictions and time required to obtain visas Each of thesepotential disadvantages must be carefully weighed against the potential benefits beforeany collaborative arrangement is undertaken (Oldham 2005 Bradley 2008)

Considering these aspects Ibero-America represents a unique case to investigate interms of science collaboration Most of the countries in the region have a long traditionof higher education and the academic culture is well established On the other handBrazil has been organizing and investing aggressively in the higher education sectorduring the last 60 years leading to an important evolution of science and innovationin this country Spain and Portugal have benefited from a long period of economicboom developing a good number of high quality research universities and researchcenters Because of the political instability and relative lack of support to the academicprofession many Latin American countries have suffered from massive brain drainalthough this has drastically decreased in recent years The advent of political stabilityand economic development contributed to the recognition of the importance of researchuniversities to the region This region has a large potential to develop science and tech-nology endeavors and to intensify its research collaborations In fact the cultural andlanguage differences represent only a limited barrier to the consolidation of strong linksfor common research agendas within Latin America

Paradoxically some Latin American countries displayed until recently a tendencyto insulate their research communities from the world Now it is more common inthe region to see institutional efforts towards international collaboration In Brazilthe lsquoScience without Bordersrsquo program as well as several actions currently availablefrom state agencies (such as the ones from FAPESP discussed in this text) wereenacted to reverse this tendency The results of such programs will be more clearlyevident in the next few years

With the improvement of scientific article databases has come the development ofstatistical tools as well as interested research groups studying the field of bibliographicstudies so that many aspects of this complex scenario will be elucidated in the comingyears Considering that there have been limited studies in this field until now thereremain many questions unanswered For example it would be interesting to understandhow individual authors acquire more recognition as a result of joint publication withinternationally recognized authors ie how the participation in international collabor-ation influences not only subsequent papers but also the establishment of scientific lea-dership and national and regional policies to form a solid ground where scientificexcellence can flourish and support development

422 M Knobel et al

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

Del

Ros

ario

] at

08

21 2

9 O

ctob

er 2

013

AcknowledgementsThe authors acknowledge the financial support by FAPESP (Brazil) They would also like tothank Liz Reisberg for the critical reading of the manuscript

Notes1 Other definitions exist but the exact definition will not change substantially the main con-

clusions of this paper nor the number discussed here2 CH Brito Cruz lsquoO apoio dos estados agrave pesquisa no Brasilrsquo presentation at the Brazilian

Biochemistry Society (June 2012)3 httpwwwaugerorg4 httpwwwsoartelescopeorg5 httpwwwgeminiedu6 httpwwwfapespbren5399

ReferencesAltbach Philip G and Jamil Salmi eds 2011 The road to academic excellence The making of

world-class research universities Washington DC The World BankBasu Aparna and Ritu Aggarwal 2001 International collaboration in science in India and its

impact on institutional performance Scientometrics 52 no 3 379ndash94Block and Miguel A Gonzaacutelez 2006 The state of international collaboration for health systems

research What do publications tell Health Research Policy and Systems 4 7 httpwwwncbinlmnihgovpmcarticlesPMC1569829

Bradley Megan 2008 On the agenda NorthndashSouth research partnerships and agenda-settingprocesses Development in Practice 18 no 6 673ndash85

BUTANTAN 2012 httpwwwbutantangovbrhomeCIGB 2012 httpwwwcigbeducuCINDA 2007 Educacioacuten Superior en Iberoameacuterica ndash Informe 2007 httpwwwcindaclhtm

p0607htmDe Filippo Daniela Fernando Casani Carlos Garciacutea-Zorita Preiddy Efraiacuten-Garciacutea and Eliacuteas

Sanz-Casado 2012 Visibility in international rankings Strategies for enhancing the com-petitiveness of Spanish universities Scientometrics (online first)

Dickson David 2011 How to get the best out of research collaboration SciDev httpwwwscidevneteneditorialshow-to-get-the-best-out-of-research-collaborationhtml

Egwang Thomas G 2008 Stable support needed for African malaria networks ScieDevNethttpwwwscidevnetenscience-and-innovation-policysouth-south-cooperationopinionsstable-support-needed-for-african-malaria-networkshtml

EMBRAER 2012 httpwwwembraercomen-USPagesHomeaspxEMBRAPA 2012 httpwwwembrapabrenglishFIOCRUZ 2012 httpportalfiocruzbrenhome_enGEOCAPES 2011 httpgeocapescapesgovbrgeocapesdsGiudice Gian Francesco 2012 Big science and the Large Hadron Collider Physics in

Perspective 14 no 1 95ndash112Haislip JB MC Nysewander DE Reichart A Levan N Tanvir S Cenko D B Fox et al

2006 A photometric redshift of z=639plusmn012 for GRB 050904 Nature 440 181ndash83Harvey Lee ed 2008 Rankings of higher education institutions A critical review InQuality in

Higher Education ed Lee Harvey 14 no 3 187ndash207IBGE 2010 httpwwwibgegovbrhomepresidencianoticiasnoticia_visualizaphpid_noticia=

2265ampid_pagina=1amptitulo=Regiao-Norte-aumenta-participacao-no-PIB-nacionalINCA 2012wwwincagovbrIvers Louise C Joia S Mukherjee Fernet R Leandre Jonas Rigodon Kimberly A Cullen and

Jennifer Furin 2010 SouthndashSouth collaboration in scale-up of HIV care Building humancapacity for care AIDS 24 73ndash78

Jaffe Klaus 2011 Do countries with lower self-citation rates produce higher impact papers Ordoes humility pay Interciencia 36 no 9 694ndash98

Studies in Higher Education 423

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

Del

Ros

ario

] at

08

21 2

9 O

ctob

er 2

013

2011 FAPESP supported four visiting researchers per week) Also the agency sup-ports academic meetings and workshops in the state of Satildeo Paulo Starting in 2006the agency enacted collaboration agreements with foreign funding agencies andresearch institutions Presently there are more than 60 such agreements that generatedmore than 300 joint research projects that include exchange activities as well as fulljoint research programs6

In the last few years programs have expanded that support international collabor-ation Starting in 2011 all 12000 fellowship holders at FAPESP can choose to spendfrom four months to one year in a research laboratory or institution abroad doingwork related to their project in Brazil (Grant for Research Studies Abroad ndash BEPE)Students enrolled in undergraduate graduate and doctoral programs are eligible forthese grants The proposals submitted by participants must show that the internshipperiod abroad will contribute significantly to their research in Brazil

Another new program offered by FAPESP is for the organization of short durationcourses in advanced research in any area of knowledge in the state of Satildeo Paulo Theseare the Satildeo Paulo Schools of Advanced Sciences (SPSAS) Each SPSAS offers 1ndash2-week courses in advanced themes in science and technology contributing to the for-mation of the young participants Through this initiative FAPESP expects to establisha globally competitive hub for talented young researchers The SPSAS lecturers arescientists with excellent qualifications prominent in their research fields includinginvited foreign scientists The students must be enrolled in undergraduate or graduateprograms and 50 of them must be international students being potential candidatesfor masterrsquos doctorate or post-doctoral programs in higher education and research insti-tutes in the state of Sao Paulo

The third new program offered by FAPESP is the Satildeo Paulo Excellence Chairs(SPEC) In this program FAPESP offers support for top foreign scientists with perma-nent positions abroad who are willing to spend at least 12 weeks per year over a periodof at least 3 years leading a research project in a university or research institution in SatildeoPaulo Salary for the 12 weeks is paid by the host institution in Satildeo Paulo and fundingfor the research costs comes from FAPESP The foreign scientist does not have to leavehisher job and can obtain additional funds for other ideas that heshe might want todevelop in the state of Satildeo Paulo

Concluding remarks

Public policies funding agencies and universities need to take into account the inherentcomplexity of building capacity to generate knowledge through cross-country researchNorthndashSouth collaboration can be strengthened through further involvement of devel-oped countries in funding supporting and leading research in developing countriesHowever SouthndashSouth collaborations also need to be strengthened through innovativestrategies Institutions in upper-middle-income countries that currently possess the mostcapacity for developing comparative research can been encouraged and supported to leadresearch involving lower-income countries This involvement can ensure not onlyincreased (and better distributed) technical capacity but also amore appropriate researchprocess and subsequently more policy impact (Block 2006) In any case the role ofresearch universities is central to this process in order to benefit the advancement ofscience and technology as well as the formation of a critical mass of researchers necess-ary to keep andor advance the development of each region or country An increase ofself-citation rates in almost all countries during the last decade (Jaffe 2011) calls for

Studies in Higher Education 421

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

Del

Ros

ario

] at

08

21 2

9 O

ctob

er 2

013

exploring science policies that will increase scientific and social impact including inter-national cooperation and science education with broader outlooks

However despite the various factors that favor collaboration there are challenges thatneed to be recognized Elements of exploitation can exist with a collaborative arrange-ment particularly when they involve partners of unequal scientific strength Sucharrangements can provide less benefit to the weaker partner especially if given a periph-eral role that will result in little improvement to capacity at the end of the project Afurther issue results from the fact that the greater the scientific strength of a countrythe greater the propensity to engage in international collaboration this can lead toforeign scientists playing an excessively dominant role in setting the research agendain a country that is scientifically weaker Also administrative and other costs ndash referredto as the lsquotransaction costsrsquo ndash of collaborating with partners in foreign countries can oftenbe high Such costs may be incurred by language differences and resulting communi-cation problems by bureaucratic and management differences and styles and by frustra-tions caused by travel restrictions and time required to obtain visas Each of thesepotential disadvantages must be carefully weighed against the potential benefits beforeany collaborative arrangement is undertaken (Oldham 2005 Bradley 2008)

Considering these aspects Ibero-America represents a unique case to investigate interms of science collaboration Most of the countries in the region have a long traditionof higher education and the academic culture is well established On the other handBrazil has been organizing and investing aggressively in the higher education sectorduring the last 60 years leading to an important evolution of science and innovationin this country Spain and Portugal have benefited from a long period of economicboom developing a good number of high quality research universities and researchcenters Because of the political instability and relative lack of support to the academicprofession many Latin American countries have suffered from massive brain drainalthough this has drastically decreased in recent years The advent of political stabilityand economic development contributed to the recognition of the importance of researchuniversities to the region This region has a large potential to develop science and tech-nology endeavors and to intensify its research collaborations In fact the cultural andlanguage differences represent only a limited barrier to the consolidation of strong linksfor common research agendas within Latin America

Paradoxically some Latin American countries displayed until recently a tendencyto insulate their research communities from the world Now it is more common inthe region to see institutional efforts towards international collaboration In Brazilthe lsquoScience without Bordersrsquo program as well as several actions currently availablefrom state agencies (such as the ones from FAPESP discussed in this text) wereenacted to reverse this tendency The results of such programs will be more clearlyevident in the next few years

With the improvement of scientific article databases has come the development ofstatistical tools as well as interested research groups studying the field of bibliographicstudies so that many aspects of this complex scenario will be elucidated in the comingyears Considering that there have been limited studies in this field until now thereremain many questions unanswered For example it would be interesting to understandhow individual authors acquire more recognition as a result of joint publication withinternationally recognized authors ie how the participation in international collabor-ation influences not only subsequent papers but also the establishment of scientific lea-dership and national and regional policies to form a solid ground where scientificexcellence can flourish and support development

422 M Knobel et al

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

Del

Ros

ario

] at

08

21 2

9 O

ctob

er 2

013

AcknowledgementsThe authors acknowledge the financial support by FAPESP (Brazil) They would also like tothank Liz Reisberg for the critical reading of the manuscript

Notes1 Other definitions exist but the exact definition will not change substantially the main con-

clusions of this paper nor the number discussed here2 CH Brito Cruz lsquoO apoio dos estados agrave pesquisa no Brasilrsquo presentation at the Brazilian

Biochemistry Society (June 2012)3 httpwwwaugerorg4 httpwwwsoartelescopeorg5 httpwwwgeminiedu6 httpwwwfapespbren5399

ReferencesAltbach Philip G and Jamil Salmi eds 2011 The road to academic excellence The making of

world-class research universities Washington DC The World BankBasu Aparna and Ritu Aggarwal 2001 International collaboration in science in India and its

impact on institutional performance Scientometrics 52 no 3 379ndash94Block and Miguel A Gonzaacutelez 2006 The state of international collaboration for health systems

research What do publications tell Health Research Policy and Systems 4 7 httpwwwncbinlmnihgovpmcarticlesPMC1569829

Bradley Megan 2008 On the agenda NorthndashSouth research partnerships and agenda-settingprocesses Development in Practice 18 no 6 673ndash85

BUTANTAN 2012 httpwwwbutantangovbrhomeCIGB 2012 httpwwwcigbeducuCINDA 2007 Educacioacuten Superior en Iberoameacuterica ndash Informe 2007 httpwwwcindaclhtm

p0607htmDe Filippo Daniela Fernando Casani Carlos Garciacutea-Zorita Preiddy Efraiacuten-Garciacutea and Eliacuteas

Sanz-Casado 2012 Visibility in international rankings Strategies for enhancing the com-petitiveness of Spanish universities Scientometrics (online first)

Dickson David 2011 How to get the best out of research collaboration SciDev httpwwwscidevneteneditorialshow-to-get-the-best-out-of-research-collaborationhtml

Egwang Thomas G 2008 Stable support needed for African malaria networks ScieDevNethttpwwwscidevnetenscience-and-innovation-policysouth-south-cooperationopinionsstable-support-needed-for-african-malaria-networkshtml

EMBRAER 2012 httpwwwembraercomen-USPagesHomeaspxEMBRAPA 2012 httpwwwembrapabrenglishFIOCRUZ 2012 httpportalfiocruzbrenhome_enGEOCAPES 2011 httpgeocapescapesgovbrgeocapesdsGiudice Gian Francesco 2012 Big science and the Large Hadron Collider Physics in

Perspective 14 no 1 95ndash112Haislip JB MC Nysewander DE Reichart A Levan N Tanvir S Cenko D B Fox et al

2006 A photometric redshift of z=639plusmn012 for GRB 050904 Nature 440 181ndash83Harvey Lee ed 2008 Rankings of higher education institutions A critical review InQuality in

Higher Education ed Lee Harvey 14 no 3 187ndash207IBGE 2010 httpwwwibgegovbrhomepresidencianoticiasnoticia_visualizaphpid_noticia=

2265ampid_pagina=1amptitulo=Regiao-Norte-aumenta-participacao-no-PIB-nacionalINCA 2012wwwincagovbrIvers Louise C Joia S Mukherjee Fernet R Leandre Jonas Rigodon Kimberly A Cullen and

Jennifer Furin 2010 SouthndashSouth collaboration in scale-up of HIV care Building humancapacity for care AIDS 24 73ndash78

Jaffe Klaus 2011 Do countries with lower self-citation rates produce higher impact papers Ordoes humility pay Interciencia 36 no 9 694ndash98

Studies in Higher Education 423

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

Del

Ros

ario

] at

08

21 2

9 O

ctob

er 2

013

exploring science policies that will increase scientific and social impact including inter-national cooperation and science education with broader outlooks

However despite the various factors that favor collaboration there are challenges thatneed to be recognized Elements of exploitation can exist with a collaborative arrange-ment particularly when they involve partners of unequal scientific strength Sucharrangements can provide less benefit to the weaker partner especially if given a periph-eral role that will result in little improvement to capacity at the end of the project Afurther issue results from the fact that the greater the scientific strength of a countrythe greater the propensity to engage in international collaboration this can lead toforeign scientists playing an excessively dominant role in setting the research agendain a country that is scientifically weaker Also administrative and other costs ndash referredto as the lsquotransaction costsrsquo ndash of collaborating with partners in foreign countries can oftenbe high Such costs may be incurred by language differences and resulting communi-cation problems by bureaucratic and management differences and styles and by frustra-tions caused by travel restrictions and time required to obtain visas Each of thesepotential disadvantages must be carefully weighed against the potential benefits beforeany collaborative arrangement is undertaken (Oldham 2005 Bradley 2008)

Considering these aspects Ibero-America represents a unique case to investigate interms of science collaboration Most of the countries in the region have a long traditionof higher education and the academic culture is well established On the other handBrazil has been organizing and investing aggressively in the higher education sectorduring the last 60 years leading to an important evolution of science and innovationin this country Spain and Portugal have benefited from a long period of economicboom developing a good number of high quality research universities and researchcenters Because of the political instability and relative lack of support to the academicprofession many Latin American countries have suffered from massive brain drainalthough this has drastically decreased in recent years The advent of political stabilityand economic development contributed to the recognition of the importance of researchuniversities to the region This region has a large potential to develop science and tech-nology endeavors and to intensify its research collaborations In fact the cultural andlanguage differences represent only a limited barrier to the consolidation of strong linksfor common research agendas within Latin America

Paradoxically some Latin American countries displayed until recently a tendencyto insulate their research communities from the world Now it is more common inthe region to see institutional efforts towards international collaboration In Brazilthe lsquoScience without Bordersrsquo program as well as several actions currently availablefrom state agencies (such as the ones from FAPESP discussed in this text) wereenacted to reverse this tendency The results of such programs will be more clearlyevident in the next few years

With the improvement of scientific article databases has come the development ofstatistical tools as well as interested research groups studying the field of bibliographicstudies so that many aspects of this complex scenario will be elucidated in the comingyears Considering that there have been limited studies in this field until now thereremain many questions unanswered For example it would be interesting to understandhow individual authors acquire more recognition as a result of joint publication withinternationally recognized authors ie how the participation in international collabor-ation influences not only subsequent papers but also the establishment of scientific lea-dership and national and regional policies to form a solid ground where scientificexcellence can flourish and support development

422 M Knobel et al

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

Del

Ros

ario

] at

08

21 2

9 O

ctob

er 2

013

AcknowledgementsThe authors acknowledge the financial support by FAPESP (Brazil) They would also like tothank Liz Reisberg for the critical reading of the manuscript

Notes1 Other definitions exist but the exact definition will not change substantially the main con-

clusions of this paper nor the number discussed here2 CH Brito Cruz lsquoO apoio dos estados agrave pesquisa no Brasilrsquo presentation at the Brazilian

Biochemistry Society (June 2012)3 httpwwwaugerorg4 httpwwwsoartelescopeorg5 httpwwwgeminiedu6 httpwwwfapespbren5399

ReferencesAltbach Philip G and Jamil Salmi eds 2011 The road to academic excellence The making of

world-class research universities Washington DC The World BankBasu Aparna and Ritu Aggarwal 2001 International collaboration in science in India and its

impact on institutional performance Scientometrics 52 no 3 379ndash94Block and Miguel A Gonzaacutelez 2006 The state of international collaboration for health systems

research What do publications tell Health Research Policy and Systems 4 7 httpwwwncbinlmnihgovpmcarticlesPMC1569829

Bradley Megan 2008 On the agenda NorthndashSouth research partnerships and agenda-settingprocesses Development in Practice 18 no 6 673ndash85

BUTANTAN 2012 httpwwwbutantangovbrhomeCIGB 2012 httpwwwcigbeducuCINDA 2007 Educacioacuten Superior en Iberoameacuterica ndash Informe 2007 httpwwwcindaclhtm

p0607htmDe Filippo Daniela Fernando Casani Carlos Garciacutea-Zorita Preiddy Efraiacuten-Garciacutea and Eliacuteas

Sanz-Casado 2012 Visibility in international rankings Strategies for enhancing the com-petitiveness of Spanish universities Scientometrics (online first)

Dickson David 2011 How to get the best out of research collaboration SciDev httpwwwscidevneteneditorialshow-to-get-the-best-out-of-research-collaborationhtml

Egwang Thomas G 2008 Stable support needed for African malaria networks ScieDevNethttpwwwscidevnetenscience-and-innovation-policysouth-south-cooperationopinionsstable-support-needed-for-african-malaria-networkshtml

EMBRAER 2012 httpwwwembraercomen-USPagesHomeaspxEMBRAPA 2012 httpwwwembrapabrenglishFIOCRUZ 2012 httpportalfiocruzbrenhome_enGEOCAPES 2011 httpgeocapescapesgovbrgeocapesdsGiudice Gian Francesco 2012 Big science and the Large Hadron Collider Physics in

Perspective 14 no 1 95ndash112Haislip JB MC Nysewander DE Reichart A Levan N Tanvir S Cenko D B Fox et al

2006 A photometric redshift of z=639plusmn012 for GRB 050904 Nature 440 181ndash83Harvey Lee ed 2008 Rankings of higher education institutions A critical review InQuality in

Higher Education ed Lee Harvey 14 no 3 187ndash207IBGE 2010 httpwwwibgegovbrhomepresidencianoticiasnoticia_visualizaphpid_noticia=

2265ampid_pagina=1amptitulo=Regiao-Norte-aumenta-participacao-no-PIB-nacionalINCA 2012wwwincagovbrIvers Louise C Joia S Mukherjee Fernet R Leandre Jonas Rigodon Kimberly A Cullen and

Jennifer Furin 2010 SouthndashSouth collaboration in scale-up of HIV care Building humancapacity for care AIDS 24 73ndash78

Jaffe Klaus 2011 Do countries with lower self-citation rates produce higher impact papers Ordoes humility pay Interciencia 36 no 9 694ndash98

Studies in Higher Education 423

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

Del

Ros

ario

] at

08

21 2

9 O

ctob

er 2

013

AcknowledgementsThe authors acknowledge the financial support by FAPESP (Brazil) They would also like tothank Liz Reisberg for the critical reading of the manuscript

Notes1 Other definitions exist but the exact definition will not change substantially the main con-

clusions of this paper nor the number discussed here2 CH Brito Cruz lsquoO apoio dos estados agrave pesquisa no Brasilrsquo presentation at the Brazilian

Biochemistry Society (June 2012)3 httpwwwaugerorg4 httpwwwsoartelescopeorg5 httpwwwgeminiedu6 httpwwwfapespbren5399

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world-class research universities Washington DC The World BankBasu Aparna and Ritu Aggarwal 2001 International collaboration in science in India and its

impact on institutional performance Scientometrics 52 no 3 379ndash94Block and Miguel A Gonzaacutelez 2006 The state of international collaboration for health systems

research What do publications tell Health Research Policy and Systems 4 7 httpwwwncbinlmnihgovpmcarticlesPMC1569829

Bradley Megan 2008 On the agenda NorthndashSouth research partnerships and agenda-settingprocesses Development in Practice 18 no 6 673ndash85

BUTANTAN 2012 httpwwwbutantangovbrhomeCIGB 2012 httpwwwcigbeducuCINDA 2007 Educacioacuten Superior en Iberoameacuterica ndash Informe 2007 httpwwwcindaclhtm

p0607htmDe Filippo Daniela Fernando Casani Carlos Garciacutea-Zorita Preiddy Efraiacuten-Garciacutea and Eliacuteas

Sanz-Casado 2012 Visibility in international rankings Strategies for enhancing the com-petitiveness of Spanish universities Scientometrics (online first)

Dickson David 2011 How to get the best out of research collaboration SciDev httpwwwscidevneteneditorialshow-to-get-the-best-out-of-research-collaborationhtml

Egwang Thomas G 2008 Stable support needed for African malaria networks ScieDevNethttpwwwscidevnetenscience-and-innovation-policysouth-south-cooperationopinionsstable-support-needed-for-african-malaria-networkshtml

EMBRAER 2012 httpwwwembraercomen-USPagesHomeaspxEMBRAPA 2012 httpwwwembrapabrenglishFIOCRUZ 2012 httpportalfiocruzbrenhome_enGEOCAPES 2011 httpgeocapescapesgovbrgeocapesdsGiudice Gian Francesco 2012 Big science and the Large Hadron Collider Physics in

Perspective 14 no 1 95ndash112Haislip JB MC Nysewander DE Reichart A Levan N Tanvir S Cenko D B Fox et al

2006 A photometric redshift of z=639plusmn012 for GRB 050904 Nature 440 181ndash83Harvey Lee ed 2008 Rankings of higher education institutions A critical review InQuality in

Higher Education ed Lee Harvey 14 no 3 187ndash207IBGE 2010 httpwwwibgegovbrhomepresidencianoticiasnoticia_visualizaphpid_noticia=

2265ampid_pagina=1amptitulo=Regiao-Norte-aumenta-participacao-no-PIB-nacionalINCA 2012wwwincagovbrIvers Louise C Joia S Mukherjee Fernet R Leandre Jonas Rigodon Kimberly A Cullen and

Jennifer Furin 2010 SouthndashSouth collaboration in scale-up of HIV care Building humancapacity for care AIDS 24 73ndash78

Jaffe Klaus 2011 Do countries with lower self-citation rates produce higher impact papers Ordoes humility pay Interciencia 36 no 9 694ndash98

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Jeong Seonkyoon Jae Young Choi and Jaeyun Kim 2011 The determinants of researchcollaboration modes Exploring the effects of research and researcher characteristics onco-authorship Scientometrics 89 no 3 967ndash83

Kehm Barbara M and Bjorn Stensaker eds 2009 University rankings diversity and the newlandscape of higher education Rotterdam Sense Publishers

Knobel Marcelo 2012 Brazilrsquos student mobility initiative International Higher Education 66 15ndash17 httpshtmldbprodbceduplshtmldbfp=229040NORP4P0_CONTENT_ID116559

Lancho-Barrantes Baacuterbara S Vicente P Guerrero-Bote and Feacutelix de Moya-Anegoacuten 2012Citation increments between collaborating countries Scientometrics (online first)

Leta J and Carlos H Brito Cruz 2003 A produccedilatildeo cientiacutefica brasileira Indicadores deCiecircncia Tecnologia e Inovaccedilatildeo no Brasil Campinas Editora da Unicamp

Matsas George A 2012 What are scientific leaders The introduction of a normalized impactfactor Brazilian Journal of Physics (online first)

Mouton Johann and Roland Waast 2009a Mapping research systems in developing countriesndash Synthesis report (Footnote120) 89 httpacademicsunaczacrestunescodataSynthesis20reportpdf

Mouton Johann and Roland Waast 2009b Mapping research systems in developing countriesndash Synthesis report (Footnote 121) 89 httpacademicsunaczacrestunescodataSynthesis20reportpdf

Oldham Geoffrey 2005 International scientific collaboration A quick guide SciDevNet httpwwwscidevnetenpolicy-briefsinternational-scientific-collaboration-a-quick-guihtml

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Osama Athar 2008 Opportunities and challenges in SouthndashSouth collaboration ScieDevNethttpwwwscidevnetenscience-and-innovation-policysouth-south-cooperationpolicy-briefsopportunities-and-challenges-in-south-south-collabhtml

Peclin Stojan Primož Južnic Rok Blagus Mojca Cižek Sajko and Janez Stare 2012 Effects ofinternational collaboration and status of journal on impact of papers Scientometrics (onlinefirst)

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national studies A symposium International Studies Review 9 556ndash64RICYT 2012 httpwwwricytorgSociety Royal 2011Knowledge networks and nations Global scientific collaboration in the 21st

century London The Royal Society httproyalsocietyorguploadedFilesRoyal_Society_ContentInfluencing_PolicyReports2011-03-28-Knowledge-networks-nationspdf

Sadlak Y and NC Liu 2007 The world-class university and ranking Aiming beyond statusBucharest Shanghai Cluj-Napoca UNESCO-CEPES Shanghai Jiaotong University ClujUniversity Press

Schulz Peter A and Edmilson JT Manganote 2012 Revisiting country research profilesLearning about the scientific cultures Scientometrics (online first)

SJR ndash SCImago Journal amp Country Rank 2010 httpwwwscimagojrcomcountryrankphparea=0ampcategory=0ampregion=allampyear=2010amporder=itampmin=0ampmin_type=it and httpwwwscimagojrcomcountrysearchphpcountry=BRamparea=0

UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2010httpstatsuisunescoorgunescoTableViewerdocumentaspxReportId=136ampIF_Language=engampBR_Topic=0

Van Raan Anthony FJ 2005 Fatal attraction Conceptual and methodological problems in theranking of universities by bibliometric methods Scientometrics 62 no 1 133ndash43

Victora Cesar G and Carmen B Moreira 2006 NorthndashSouth relations in scientificpublications Editorial racism Revista de Sauacutede Puacuteblica 40 36ndash42

Weinberg Alvin M 1961 Impact of large-scale science on the United States Science 134161ndash64

Weinberg Alvin M 1967 Reflections on big science Cambridge MA The MIT Press

424 M Knobel et al

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] at

08

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013