Inside Southern Illinois University Carbondale's largest research partnership: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Behind Southern Illinois University Carbondale's research output sits a defining relationship: 93 co-authored works with University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (United States) in the five years to 2025, the university's single largest collaboration.

It anchors an unusually connected research base: 733 collaborating institutions across 72 countries, producing 4,103 joint works over the window, with international co-authors on 25% of output.

The collaborative work travels: its field-weighted citation impact stands at 2.21, where the world average is 1.0.

The Research Collaboration Index, the first global account of how universities actually collaborate, publishes its first full edition on Tuesday 15 September at 09:00 UK.

Every figure derives from the open global research record and is checkable at source.