As research fragments, collaboration does not necessarily follow political allegiance, say Hyejin Kim and colleagues
The internationalisation of science is slowing down. Geopolitical tensions and the increasing importance of technology for economic, military and political strength have raised concerns about international research cooperation.
Countries, institutions and researchers are assessing the security implications and other risks before entering into collaborations that, until recently, were seen as desirable.
This matters because growing international collaboration among researchers has become a pillar of scientific innovation. The emergence of China as a major player in science was a crucial aspect of this internationalisation. Collaboration permitted rapid advances in science, technology and innovation.
Co-publications between China and the United States reflect these trends. After years of increase, these are declining both in relative and absolute terms. Trends in European collaboration with China are more varied; some countries are showing a decline in co-publications as a share of total publications but not in absolute numbers.
In Australia and North America, security concerns have bred a reluctance to collaborate with China-based researchers. Researchers in Europe, whether commercial or academic, must consider not only direct security issues but also the risks of falling foul of US expectations and rules on technology sharing.
This incipient form of disentanglement or fragmentation of international research poses many questions. Are US-allied countries decoupling from China, or only derisking? Are current concerns part of a new normal or temporary?
What is clear is that the era of ever-growing internationalisation in research is drawing to a close. Even if geopolitical tensions ease, ties that took decades to build are being severed. The impact will be long-term, leaving international research collaboration fragmented.
Inevitable fracture?
This fragmentation is uneven. Some fields, such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and dual-use technologies, are particularly exposed to security concerns. Basic science and the humanities generally prompt less concern. However, decisions about risk management are made at different levels. Some are specific to particular projects or disciplines, others are made at the institutional level or come from governments. The higher up a decision is taken, the wider its effects. Some governments and universities have discouraged or prohibited collaboration with particular institutions.
Different actors’ decisions about international collaboration will advance cooperation in some fields while putting other areas or partners under greater scrutiny, in some cases making them effectively off-limits.
There is also geographic unevenness in the fragmentation of scientific collaboration. The current tone of the Sino-American rivalry suggests the world is dividing into pro-Washington and pro-Beijing blocs. This might seem something like a return to the US-Soviet Cold War. However, early indications are that the nuances of scientific cooperation and fragmentation today are rather different.
Politically, for example, South Korea is firmly in the US camp. In 2023, Seoul embraced Washington’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, announcing that South Korea would side with the US against China. One might therefore expect South Korea to have turned away from research collaboration with China. In reality, its position has been more nuanced. For over 15 years, collaboration with China has grown rapidly while collaboration with the US has declined as a share of total Korean publications.
There is no sign of a decoupling or derisking. Korean researchers collaborate easily with Chinese counterparts, and neither the government nor institutions have introduced new measures to assess risks from collaboration.
An established democracy and a technological powerhouse, South Korea has found space to buck the trend towards disentanglement. This suggests that fragmentation in international scientific collaboration might unfold in complex, uneven ways.
Internationalisation of science is almost certain to stagnate or decline in the near future. Even so, an emphasis on risk management need not mean an abrupt severing of ties. What matters is how these risk assessments are made.
If narrowly defined security and regulatory concerns dominate, collaboration could shut down across many subjects. But if risk management is done more precisely and with consideration of the risks of not collaborating, more international cooperation might be maintained.
In a world of fragmented science, understanding that collaboration entails risks need not mean the end of internationalism.
Hyejin Kim is at the National University of Singapore. Sylvia Schwaag Serger is at Lund University, Sweden. Erik Mobrand is at Seoul National University, South Korea. Igor Martins is at the University of Cambridge.
This article also appeared in Research Europe