Who sets up the bridge? Tracking scientific collaborations between China and the European Union

In the past decade, collaborations between China and European Union have been rapidly expanding. Hitherto, however, little research has been carried out to assess implementation and impacts of such collaborations. This paper evaluates the collaboration performance between China and the EU28 concerning major research and innovation priorities. To shed light on the initiatives of collaborations, corresponding authors are detected and classified into three categories, Chinese local, Chinese abroad, and non-Chinese. In order to foster more profitable collaboration for both parties and to formulate options for international policy on research and innovation cooperation between the European Union and China, this paper presents an in-depth analysis of the scientific collaborations focusing on the initiatives and benefits of the collaborations.