Inside Southwest Petroleum University's largest research partnership: Sichuan University

Behind Southwest Petroleum University's research output sits a defining relationship: 501 co-authored works with Sichuan University (China) in the five years to 2025, the university's single largest collaboration.

It anchors an unusually connected research base: 577 collaborating institutions across 55 countries, producing 16,637 joint works over the window, with international co-authors on 12% of output.

The collaborative work travels: its field-weighted citation impact stands at 1.88, 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.