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.

Cross-border regional innovation systems: conceptual backgrounds, empirical evidence and policy implications

“…Accordingly, the discussion of related variety, while conceptually alluring, is hard to pinpoint empirically, and has yet to be verified empirically in the context of CBRIS. Consequently, the empirical literature on CBRIS has concentrated on studying a single, or few types of, proximity including cognitive distance (Makkonen, 2015), geographical proximity or physical barriers (Bijaoui et al, 2011;Hansen, 2013;Kiryushin et al, 2013) and institutional gaps (van den Broek & Smulders, 2014;. What is noticeable, is that in the early literature on CBRIS, the empirical validations of proximity in CBR were actually more diverse and ambitious than they have been recently (Appendix 1).…”

“…Jauhiainen (2014) has subsequently summarised some of the key issues of CBRIS in a policy briefing. Following the conceptual literature, CBRIS have also been used as an analytical framework in various empirical studies (Bijaoui, Sultan, & Tarba, 2011;Hansen, 2013;Kiryushin et al, 2013;van den Broek & Smulders, 2014;Makkonen, 2015).…”

“…However, empirically no study thus far has explored all these dimensions together, an issue that Lundquist and Trippl (2013) deem to be extremely important for further developments of the concept. Instead, the subsequent empirical literature has concentrated only on individual aspects of CBRIS and on a few closely connected dimensions: van den Broek and Smulders (2014; have analysed the socioinstitutional and governance dimensions, whereas Hansen (2013) and Makkonen (2015) have explored the knowledge infrastructure and relational dimensions. Therefore, the concept has yet to be validated as a whole.…”

Knowledge-based urban development of cross-border twin cities

“…The selection of data sources was largely based on data availability in relation to the indicator utilised here. The data sources can be considered as reliable, which is evidenced, for example, by their wide use in earlier academic literature (e.g., Perkmann, 2003;Roediger-Schluga and Barber, 2008;Hansen, 2013;Nauwelaers et al, 2013;Makkonen, 2015Makkonen, , 2016Morescalchi et al, 2015; Since many KBUD elements are not only dependent on the city itself but also on the conditions of the larger regional level where the city is situated (Esmaeilpoorarabi et al, 2016), for example, Helsinki and Copenhagen cannot functionally be delineated from their surrounding capital metropolitan regions. Thus, the data was collected for two case study regions including the central cross-border twin city pairs and their surrounding regions: Helsinki (Uusimaa) -Tallinn (Harju) and Copenhagen (Hovedstaden) -Malmö (Scania).…”

“…Sufficient similarity in science-bases and educational backgrounds between neighbouring parts of twin cities can facilitate positive synergies and higher levels of cross-border integration and co-publications (Lundquist and Trippl, 2013;. Thus, high numbers of cross-border publications are commonly driven by close ties within similar research fields active on both sides of the border (Makkonen, 2015). As in the case of cross-border patents, the biotech and life sciences sectors are particularly active (while naturally there is still room for intensifying this cooperation) in publishing scientific papers based on cross-border cooperation (Coenen et al, 2004;Hansen and Hansen, 2006;Hansen, 2013).…”