Inside University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's largest research partnership: Duke University

Behind University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's research output sits a defining relationship: 3,835 co-authored works with Duke University (United States) in the five years to 2025, the university's single largest collaboration.

It anchors an unusually connected research base: 1,135 collaborating institutions across 80 countries, producing 105,021 joint works over the window, with international co-authors on 17% 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.