Scientific co-authorship among the higher education institutions from the Basque Country and Aquitaine: An analysis of the effect of geographical distance and the characterization of the knowledge exchange

Abstract

The amount of collaboration between organizations depends on geographic proximity, cultural affinity, similarity of management systems, language and government interventions, among others. This paper studies the scientific collaboration between the Basque Country and Aquitaine's Higher Education (HE) institutions. Data show that collaboration between these territories is higher than objectively expected by their corresponding share in national scientific production, and that the geographical distance between HE institutions exerts direct influence on that collaboration. Apart from that, our analysis proves that science and technology are the main topics on which the Basque Country and Aquitaine do collaborate.