A new paper by Natalia Matveeva and Anuška Ferligoj is published in Scientometrics

A paper “Scientific collaboration in Russian universities before and after the excellence initiative Project 5‑100”  by Nataliya Matveeva, Junior Research Fellow at CInSt, and Anuška Ferligoj has been published in Scientometrics.

This paper studies collaboration patterns between Russian universities after the commencement of the Russian university excellence initiative (Project 5-100). The aim of the Project 5-100 was to make leading Russian universities globally competitive and to improve their research productivity. It turned out that it also increased their cooperation.

The authors use 30 universities from the Project 5-100 and a control group which did not participate in the project. They find that the Project 5-100 universities significantly increased their cooperation with each other as well as with foreign universities and research institutions of the Russian Academy of Sciences, compared to the control group. Besides, the Project 5-100 universities improved their positions and visibility in the global academic network.

The authors conclude that the historical division between university and academic sectors has diminished, while the participating universities have started to play a more important role in knowledge production within the country.

The full paper is here:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11192-020-03602-6