Measuring and characterizing international collaboration patterns in Indian scientific research

Scientific collaboration at international level has increased manifolds during last two decades. Collaboration is not only associated with higher research productivity but has also been found to be positively correlated with impact. Considering the benefits and advantages of international collaboration for the national science and technology systems of a country, policymakers in different countries have designed programs to promote international collaboration in science. This paper attempts to measure and characterize the international collaboration patterns in Indian scientific research for the last 20 years (2001–2020) using data from WoS. The existing methods from scientometrics and a new formalism of boost in productivity, citations and visibility, is used for the purpose. Analytical results show that India’s international collaboration has grown with a CAGR of 12.27% during this period, rising from 20.73% internationally collaborated papers in 2001 to 32.35% internationally collaborated papers in 2020. USA, Germany, England, and China remain the top collaborating partners in terms of volume of papers, however, the relative intensity of collaboration with South Korea and Saudi Arabia has increased significantly. Among the internationally collaborated papers of India, about 50% papers have an Indian researcher as lead (first) author, and further the internationally collaborated papers of India have more than 50% authors from India. The Indian indigenous scholarly ecosystem is found to be significantly productive, but slight and heavy dependence for impact and visibility, respectively, is found on international collaborations. The probable factors shaping the Indian international collaboration and the major policy implications for India are discussed.