Scientific Collaboration Among BRICS: Trends and Priority Areas

Abstract

The political and economic partnership known as BRIC (for Brazil, Russia, India and China) was formally established in 2008. Three years later, in a joint meeting in Cape Town, a new member, South Africa, was included in the group. In this meeting, delegates elaborated a list of priority areas for enhancing bi- or multilateral cooperation in the fields of science, technology and innovation. Considering the growing importance of BRICS in the global economy and other sectors, the present study investigates the performance of the group in the scientific arena before and after its formalization in 2008, looking closely at BRICS collaborative publications, in order to identify whether the priority areas established in the Cape Town declaration are being actually pursued. Data were collected during February and March 2017 from the Web of Science database, covering the period 2000–2015. To match scientific collaborations, specific searches were carried out by combining the names of two BRICS members and time periods. Various bibliometric techniques were used, including diachronic analysis, Bradford's law and journal co-citation analysis. Among the key findings highlighted here are a marked increase in BRICS participation during the period, widely varying levels of collaboration among members, and the presence of physics as a central field for most members. The chapter concludes with an in-depth discussion focusing on correlations between the fields with greater collaboration and the priority areas.