Significant increase in UK and EU collaboration

Collaboration between British and EU scientists increased over the four years prior to the UK’s Brexit vote.

That's according to the Nature Index – which shows that, on average, cross-channel partnerships were producing 26 per cent more high-quality research in 2015 than in 2012, with the average collaboration score, as calculated by the Nature Index, increasing from 120 to 152. In contrast, the score for UK collaborations with the rest of the world has remained between 40 and 50 since 2012.

These findings are featured in the Nature Index 2016 Collaborations supplement, which highlights some of the most fruitful research partnerships between countries or institutions by measuring each partner’s contribution to collaborative papers in the 68 high-quality journals selected for inclusion in the index. It uses data from the Nature Index, which tracks the high-quality research of more than 8,000 global institutions.

The supplement reveals that 700 UK institutions collaborated with EU institutions in 2015 to publish papers in the high-quality journals in the index, up from 651 in 2012. Overall, the UK’s strongest ties in the EU were with Germany, followed by France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.

David Swinbanks, founder of the Nature Index, said: 'This Nature Index supplement shows that international collaboration is a consistent and rapidly growing feature of high-quality research worldwide.  For the UK, this collaboration is increasingly focussed on Europe. It is not surprising therefore that the any uncertainty linked to Brexit is giving cause for concern.'

A report published by Digital Science in May, Examining Implications of Brexit for the UK Research Base, estimated that Brexit could create a £1 billion funding gap for UK researchers.

The UK's leading universities could be amongst the hardest hit. Nature Index data show that the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, for example, were the UK’s most enthusiastic collaborators with other EU countries, making up 48 of the 100 most productive partnerships between two institutions (one from the UK, one from the EU) publishing papers together in top journals. According to Digital Science, Cambridge receives 20 per cent of its academic research funding from the EU, and Oxford 23 per cent.