Scientific collaboration framework of BRICS countries: an analysis of international coauthorship

International scientific collaboration is strategic for the growth of a country, in particular for developing countries. Among these ones the five Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) have a relevant role, also because they are joined in an association to foster mutual development. The present article studies the network of international scientific collaborations existing around the five BRICS. It does so considering the number of coauthored scientific product having authorship shared between two different countries of a group of 70: the five BRICS plus 65 countries strongly collaborating with them. Absolute numbers of coauthored scientific products are arranged in a contingency table, and Probabilistic Affinity Indexes (chosen due to size independency) are then calculated. Indexes show the relative strength of inter-BRICS collaborations with respect to the network surrounding the five countries. At the end of the work obtained results are discussed and commented, and policy suggestions are offered.