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

Behind University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's research output sits a defining relationship: 2,801 co-authored works with University of Illinois Chicago (United States) in the five years to 2025, the university's single largest collaboration.

It anchors an unusually connected research base: 1,153 collaborating institutions across 80 countries, producing 62,217 joint works over the window, with international co-authors on 31% of output.

The collaborative work travels: its field-weighted citation impact stands at 2.88, 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.