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Research Collaboration Index

The enhanced fact file

Your entire collaboration network, read like a strategist would.

Not a scorecard. A dossier that tells a university leader exactly where the strengths, the risks and the fundable opportunities are, every figure sourced from the open research record.

◆ Platinum standing · top 1% worldwide
🌍 Europe: top 1% of 417 universities
236,983
co-authored works, 5 years
1,185
partner universities
80
partner countries
1,141
sustained deep ties
3.99 FWCI
collaboration impact
94%
of partners non-redundant

The one-screen strategic read

Where you stand, at a glance.

The first thing a leader needs is not more data, it is a verdict. Three strengths to lead with, three challenges to manage, three opportunities to act on, each drawn straight from the network below.

Strengths
  • World-leading on every pillar. Top 1% globally across all seven collaboration pillars: network influence (80th percentile), reach (96th) and sustained partnership (92th).
  • A genuine bridge, not just a hub. 229 of 243 partners (94%) are non-redundant, so it connects research communities that would not otherwise meet.
  • Five subjects ranked #1 in the world. Medicine, Environmental Science, Psychology, Neuroscience and Mathematics all rank first globally for connected research: five natural anchors for new consortia.
Challenges
  • Network concentration. The top two partner countries account for about 41% of collaboration volume. Depth in the US and UK is a strength; the thin long tail is a resilience risk.
  • A high-volume, low-impact anchor. Mahidol University is a top-3 partner by output (5,549 joint works) yet returns the lowest impact of the anchor set (FWCI 1.9). Volume is not converting to citation impact.
  • Diversity is the softest pillar. Diversity sits at the 90th percentile, below the other six, and the network reaches 0 of the 2 leading collaborators in the Middle East: a clear white-space.
Opportunities
  • Win Nanyang Technological University. World top-15 for connected research and a natural, fundable bridge in Environmental Science with no joint output yet. Route: an NSFC / JSPS / A*STAR bilateral or the Human Frontier Science Program.
  • Convert the highest-yield tie. Harvard is a smaller anchor by volume but the highest-impact (FWCI 10.5). Formalising it into a funded consortium compounds impact rather than volume.
  • Diversify into the Middle East. Two of the world's leading collaborators sit in a region the network barely reaches. A cross-region Belmont Forum or HFSP action opens it.

Scholarly weight

The impact behind the network

Collaboration only counts if the work lands. This is the citation weight of everything produced with partners, the substance under the network.

909
h-index of the joint research base
16.5M
citations to co-authored work
3.26
field-weighted citation impact (FWCI)
45,218
co-authored works, 2021-2025
87
collaboration efficiency, impact per tie

Visualisation 1

Your collaboration profile

Seven pillars, each shown as a global percentile. The dashed ring marks the top-decile benchmark; anything inside it is a genuine, defensible strength.

Influence80th pctReach96th pctDiversity90th pctSustained92th pctImpact84th pctInternational93th pctBrokerage78th pct

Ghent University is strongest on network reach, international, sustained. Its brokerage is a defining signal: 229 of 243 partners (94%) are non-redundant, meaning it bridges research communities that would otherwise stay disconnected, rather than simply publishing widely.

The pillar with the most headroom is Brokerage (78th percentile): the single most useful line on the chart, because it points straight at the opportunities below.

Source: the open global research record, co-authored works 2021–2025, fractional counting

The anatomy of your standing

Exactly what your position is built from

Six pillars, each weighted, combine into one standing index. Nothing is hidden: this is the entire calculation, in a single bar.

InflImpaSustReacDiveInteEach block is a pillar’s weighted contribution; together they place the university in the top 1% worldwide.
Influence22% weight80th pct+17.6
Impact18% weight84th pct+15.1
Sustained18% weight92th pct+16.6
Reach16% weight96th pct+15.4
Diversity16% weight90th pct+14.4
International10% weight93th pct+9.3

Brokerage is reported alongside as a diagnostic, not folded into the score, so a university cannot inflate its standing simply by publishing widely. It measures whether you connect communities that would otherwise stay apart.

Visualisation 2

Where you lead the world, by field

Each subject placed on a log scale of world rank (1 to 1,195). The further left, the more globally central. Gold marks a top-3 crown jewel.

#1#10#100#1000Veterinary6Agricultural & Biologi…11Chemistry19Health Professions31Arts & Humanities35Psychology42
Crown jewel (#1–3)Top-10 strengthRanked

Five fields rank #1 in the world for connected research: Medicine, Environmental Science, Psychology, Neuroscience and Mathematics. On a normal university this chart spreads across the scale and instantly separates the crown jewels to lead with from the at-risk subjects slipping down it.

Source: subject-level indices, 26 fields, minimum 50-university gate

Discipline deep-dive

How you collaborate, faculty by faculty

The same network split into its four broad domains, each with its world rank for connected research and the five partners it leans on most. This is the view a dean or pro-vice-chancellor acts on.

Health & Medicine
World #288 for connected research
76/100
Top collaboration partners
KU Leuven1,032
Vrije Universiteit Brussel731
Antwerp699
🇸🇪 Karolinska Institutet255
🇬🇧 UCL249
Life Sciences
World #97 for connected research
92/100
Top collaboration partners
KU Leuven642
Antwerp371
Vrije Universiteit Brussel356
🇳🇱 Wageningen & Research208
Copenhagen193
Physical Sciences & Engineering
World #212 for connected research
82/100
Top collaboration partners
KU Leuven1,143
Vrije Universiteit Brussel722
Antwerp684
Université Libre de Bruxelles359
🇫🇷 Sorbonne Université357
Social Sciences
World #261 for connected research
78/100
Top collaboration partners
KU Leuven545
Vrije Universiteit Brussel373
Antwerp357
🇳🇱 Radboud Nijmegen165
Université Libre de Bruxelles161
Source: domain-level co-authorship, partner institutions 2021–2025

Visualisation 3

Which partnerships actually pay off

Every anchor partner plotted by collaboration volume against the citation impact of the joint work. The prize quadrant is top-right: high volume and high impact. The bottom-right is the trap: a lot of output, little impact.

Joint works (collaboration volume) →Impact (FWCI) →high yieldKU LeuvenVrije Universiteit BrusselAntwerpUCL
High yieldStandardLow yield

Harvard is a mid-sized partner by volume but returns an FWCI of 10.5, the highest-impact relationship in the set: a consortium waiting to happen. Mahidol, by contrast, is one of the largest partners by output yet the lowest-yield (FWCI 1.9): worth a hard look at what that volume is buying.

PartnerJoint worksFWCIYield
KU Leuven2,846 3.9Low yield
Vrije Universiteit Brussel1,820 3.8Low yield
University of Antwerp1,795 3.6Low yield
🇬🇧 University College London598 8.2Standard
Université Libre de Bruxelles595 5.0Standard
University of Liège583 3.4Low yield
University of Copenhagen538 7.8Standard
UCLouvain511 4.5Standard
🇳🇱 Utrecht University456 7.7Standard
🇬🇧 University of Oxford435 11.3High yield
Source: institution-to-institution co-authorship ledger + field-weighted citation impact

Visualisation 4

Your global reach, and where it thins out

Top partner countries

🇺🇸 United States 8,672
BE 8,257
🇬🇧 United Kingdom 5,418
🇫🇷 France 4,681
🇩🇪 Germany 4,479
🇳🇱 Netherlands 3,845
🇨🇳 China 3,755
🇮🇹 Italy 2,638

Anchor partner institutions

KU Leuven 2,846
Vrije Universiteit Brussel 1,820
University of Antwerp 1,795
🇬🇧 University College London 598
Université Libre de Bruxelles 595
University of Liège 583
University of Copenhagen 538
UCLouvain 511

The network spans 80 countries and 1,185 universities, but the top two countries carry about 41% of the volume. That concentration is where the resilience question lives, and the Middle East white-space (0 of the region's 2 leading collaborators) is the clearest gap to close.

In Veterinary, the university's single strongest partnership is 🇳🇱 Utrecht University, with 16 joint works: the natural anchor for a flagship consortium in the field where it already leads the world.
Source: co-authorship by partner-institution country, 2021–2025

Visualisation 5

The research funding behind the network

€503M781 projects
Horizon EuropeHorizon 2020

€503M across 781 EU-funded projects from the European Commission alone, split €287M Horizon Europe and €216M Horizon 2020, every project traceable to the funder's own award record (CORDIS). Your enhanced fact file adds UKRI, the ERC and the world's major national funders, each named and linked, never a single black-box platform.

Funding is shown next to the network because the two move together: the fundable opportunities below are chosen where a real programme already exists to pay for the bridge.

Source: funders' own award systems + CORDIS, awards active 2021–2025 · verified

Visualisation 6

The partners to win next

Not a generic wish-list. Globally central universities you are not yet deeply partnered with, each with the reason it matters and the specific programme that would fund the collaboration.

🇭🇰 University of Hong Kong Hong Kong SAR · world top-1

University of Hong Kong is top-181 globally in Life Sciences. A natural, fundable bridge you have not yet built at scale.

Funding route: a bilateral programme (e.g. NSFC/DFG/UKRI/NSF or an ERC-eligible consortium)

🇸🇬 National University of Singapore Singapore · world top-2

National University of Singapore is top-96 globally in Life Sciences. A natural, fundable bridge you have not yet built at scale.

Funding route: a bilateral programme (e.g. NSFC/DFG/UKRI/NSF or an ERC-eligible consortium)

🇭🇰 Chinese University of Hong Kong Hong Kong SAR · world top-3

Chinese University of Hong Kong is top-218 globally in Life Sciences. A natural, fundable bridge you have not yet built at scale.

Funding route: a bilateral programme (e.g. NSFC/DFG/UKRI/NSF or an ERC-eligible consortium)

🇸🇬 Nanyang Technological University Singapore · world top-14

Nanyang Technological University is top-439 globally in Life Sciences. A natural, fundable bridge you have not yet built at scale.

Funding route: a bilateral programme (e.g. NSFC/DFG/UKRI/NSF or an ERC-eligible consortium)

Source: network white-space analysis + funder-programme mapping

The research base

The ecosystem behind the collaboration

A partnership does not plug into a name, it plugs into a base: the affiliated hospitals, presses, institutes and archives, and the research themes where the joint work concentrates.

Ghent University HospitalVIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems BiologyGhent University Global CampusVIB-UGent Center for Inflammation ResearchVIB-UGent Center for Medical BiotechnologyVlerick Business SchoolVIB-VUB Laboratory Myeloid Cell ImmunologyVIB - International Plant Biotechnology Outreach
EngineeringBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular BiologyAgricultural and Biological SciencesEarth and Planetary Sciences

Context

Your competitive set, and your signature research

Benchmarked against

The named peer group your fact file compares you to, pillar by pillar and subject by subject.

🇺🇸 University of California, San FranciscoUnited States
🇸🇪 Uppsala UniversitySweden
🇺🇸 University of ChicagoUnited States
🇳🇱 Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamNetherlands
🇩🇪 Heidelberg UniversityGermany

Signature joint research

The most-cited work produced with partners, each verifiable.

Photonic and Optical DevicesGenomics and Phylogenetic StudiesPlant Molecular Biology ResearchMarine Biology and Ecology ResearchGeology and Paleoclimatology ResearchSemiconductor Lasers and Optical Devices

From insight to action

A 90-day plan, written from the data.

The dossier ends where a strategy meeting begins: three moves, sequenced, each pointing back to a specific finding above.

0-30 days
Name the target

Adopt Nanyang Technological University and one Middle East hub as formal partnership targets; brief the relevant department heads with the joint white-space evidence.

30-60 days
Open the funding route

Scope the specific bilateral or HFSP / Belmont Forum call for each target, and convert the Harvard tie into a consortium concept in the strongest shared field, Environmental Science.

60-90 days
Interrogate the soft spots

Review the high-volume, low-impact partnerships for quality; set a diversification target for the long tail; and secure an editorial feature in the reputation-survey window.

Exclusive to partners

Plus this same dossier on up to 10 of your peers.

Every partnership includes the full intelligence on your named competitive set, their strengths, their funders, their white-space, so you can see exactly where you lead and where to close the gap. Two peers with Recognition, five with Partnership, up to ten with Flagship.

Your research, in front of 170,000 academics, with full reporting.

Partnership also places your research as editorial features in the Research Network Report, our newsletter to a verified global academic audience, timed to the reputation-survey season. Every send comes with a full performance report: opens, clicks and geography, benchmarked against the edition.

The Research Network Report

170,000
verified academic subscribers worldwide
Nov–Jan
timed to the reputation-survey season
Full report
opens, clicks and geography on every feature

See your own dossier, built for your university.

Submit your data and we will build and review your enhanced fact file with you, then show exactly how a partnership turns it into advantage, before the index goes public on 15 September 2026.

Request a partnership conversation →
Global Research Partnerships · globalresearchpartnerships.com/rci · Built on the open global research record and the award data of the world's major funders. Methodology.