Scientific collaboration in the Danish–German border region of Southern Jutland–Schleswig

Abstract

This paper investigates the geographical and organizational patterns of scientific collaboration, in terms of co-authored scientific articles, in the Danish–German border region of Southern Jutland–Schleswig. The motivation behind the approach lies in the fact that scientific collaboration in border regions, in general, and the studied region, in particular, has rarely been discussed in the academic literature. The integration model of cross-border regional innovation systems provides the conceptual framework for the task. The paper, thus, gives methodological insights for the measurement of cross-border integration of knowledge infrastructures. The analysis reveals that collaborating with partners close but on the opposite side of the border is rare. Instead, cross-border collaboration takes place with partners from more faraway international research organizations. The reasons behind this can be found in the science bases – arguably more than from historic, linguistic or ethnic reasons – of the adjacent sides of the border. The research fields that the local scientists are engaged in seem to be too different between the Danish and German sides of the border region to foster large numbers of co-authored publications and, thus, the knowledge infrastructure of the border region can be considered as weakly integrated.