Scientific Collaboration along the Silk Road

Introduction project but also an open, inclusive, and balanced

joint development model that would boost eco- Belt and Road Initiative at a Glance nomic growth in the whole region. The Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI for short, is

an immense development program announced The Science Component of BRI

by the Chinese government in late 2013. The The historic Silk Road, trade routes between the program is knitted around trade routes, includ- East and the West of Eurasia, was active from ing the historic Silk Road, that are generally the 2nd Century BCE. Not only trade goods but aligned in an East-West direction, and includes also ideas, religions, art, and techniques were exinvestment in the construction of railways, changed. Many Chinese inventions like the com-

highways, and ports. As stated by Chin and He pass and irrigation techniques reached Europe via

(2016), the original 65 countries envisioned by the Silk Road and catalyzed the development of

China’s International Trade Institute have more Western Civilization, while China imported tech-

than 62% of the world’s population, 30% of the niques from the World as well, mostly through

world’s GDP, and 38.5% of the land area. Consid- the same route. BRI is a huge collaborative effort

ering that 140 countries signed a Memorandum covering a much larger area. Naturally, science

of Understanding (MoU) with China within the and technology are also an essential dimension of

framework of BRI, the project’s impact is even this program. With its broader definition today,

more far-reaching. It is announced not only as the Silk Road may again be a circulatory system

an infrastructure investment and trade network for the spread of science and technology.

International scientific collaboration in- the innovation ecosystem and its trends are ana-

creases the overall efficiency of the innovation lyzed through an elementary bibliometric anal-

system either through better use of resources ysis. Secondly, the results from the study of Gui,

through optimal allocation or increasing the im- Liu and Du (2019) are summarized to depict

pact of the conducted research. It also helps with existing collaboration patterns and their trends.

cultural and economic integration. To discuss Thirdly, the language problem is briefly visited.

how scientific and technical cooperation can be Considering the current situation, possi-

facilitated among the BRI countries, the “First In- ble cooperation mechanisms are discussed. The

ternational Science Forum of National Scientific role of ANSO is crucial in initiating multilater-

Organizations on the Belt and Road Initiative” al research and providing a platform to discuss

was organized in 2016. The “Alliance of Interna- the future of the “BRI Research Area,” but it is

tional Science Organizations,” ANSO, founded by argued that an inter-governmental umbrel-

37 institutions including the Chinese Academy la organization is necessary for the long run.

of Sciences (CAS), was inaugurated in 2018 as a Comparisons with various institutions are also

non-governmental organization for international provided, and the basic principles of such an or-

cooperation in science and technology. ganization are discussed. Hopefully, this paper

The current mechanism of ANSO for collab- can initiate more discussions about the future

oration are a) master of science and PhD. schol- of the joint innovation system and contribute to

arships in China sponsored by CAS, b) awards, c) the creation of a long-term vision for the scien-

short training courses hosted by Chinese institu- tific collaboration dimension of BRI.

tions, d) collaborative research activities, and e)

associations for joint activities on chosen subjects Current Situation of BRI Countries

related to the environment, development and hu-

man well-being (ANSO, 2021aANSO (2021a). The source article does not provide a separate full bibliographic entry for this citation.). Conditions for Effective International

There are also several other international Scientific Cooperation

organizations that promote scientific and techni- It is important to understand which factors in-

cal cooperation, such as the academic networks hibit effective scientific and technical coopera-

of the University Alliance of the Silk Road and tion among countries and which ones facilitate

the University Alliance of Belt and Road. them to be able to propose realistic cooperation

schemes. Gui, Liu and Du (2019) summarized

Contribution of This Work the factors that determine the possibility of

Although everyone agrees on the necessity of collaboration in science with a vector of prox-

scientific and technical cooperation as part of imities, namely, geographical, cognitive, social,

BRI, the mechanisms to promote the coopera- organizational, and institutional proximities,

tion have only recently started to emerge. In this as well as with the existence of a common lan-

paper, after the conditions of effective interna- guage, earlier relationships even in the form of

tional cooperation in science, technology, and colonialism, size of the economies, the capacity

innovation are briefly discussed, the big picture for innovation, networks of the partners, and ad-

is drawn on three axes: First, the current level of ministrative issues.

Political stability is also a very important

A common language is an factor for international cooperation. Conflicts

accelerating factor in international reduce capacity in multiple ways, and recovery

technological collaboration. The may take a very long time after the end of the common language can be the native conflict. Diversity in culture, economic and scilanguage or a second language entific development levels, languages, etc. may taught in the education system. also be roadblocks, but it is possible to overcome such difficulties and, in certain cases, they can

Ge, Dollar and Yu (2020) stated that “im- even be used as an advantage.

proved regulatory quality, political stability,

government effectiveness, and rule of law” are Current Situation

indicators for institutional quality, which facil- In this sub-section, only the current research itates the companies’ participation into global capacities of chosen countries, existing collab-

value chains in the BRI countries. These factors oration patterns, and the situation with lan-

probably encourage scientific and technical co- guages will be briefly visited. Firstly, the level of

operation as well. current research capacity is measured for some

First of all, the existing research ecosystem BRI countries. The number of articles from the

in a country determines its ability to take part “Scientific and technical journal articles” data-

in international activities to a large extent. Pow- base of the World Bank (World Bank, 2021World Bank (2021). The source article does not provide a separate full bibliographic entry for this citation.) is

erful scientific institutions well-integrated with used as an indicator of the research capacity for

industry that creates products and services via convenience, although a composite metric de-

research and development activities ensure the rived from a larger set of indicators is necessary

creation of added value through cooperation. for a detailed analysis. Even though 140 coun-

Another important factor is the geographi- tries signed MoU with China, and hence joined

cal proximity of candidate partners. However, its the BRI Initiative in some sense, we limit this

importance is getting weaker with recent devel- analysis with chosen countries in Asia and over

opments in Information and Communications major roads on the east-west axis, that is, Arme-

Technology (ICT), which accelerated consid- nia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Brunei,

erably with the COVID-19 pandemic. On the Cambodia, China, Georgia, India, Indonesia,

other hand, the ICT connectivity in Central Asia Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia,

is insufficient (Kunavut, Okuda and Lee 2018). Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia,

Hence it can be a limiting factor for this area lo- Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uz-

cated in the geographical center of BRI. bekistan, and Vietnam. Central Europe and the

As pointed out by Montobbio and Sterzi Baltics, the United States, and the World catego-

(2013), a common language is an accelerating ries from the database are also included for com-

factor in international technological collabora- parison purposes.

tion. The common language can be the native For the chosen countries, two parameters

language or a second language taught in the ed- are calculated. The first one is the number of ar-

ucation system. ticles per 1,000 people for 2018 that shows the

current research capacity. The second parameter of increase tells a different story because some

is the percentage increase in the number of ar- countries are rising quite fast while the US and

ticles, from the 2009-2013 average to the 2014- Europe look like they have reached a plateau.

2018 average, which shows the trend. A scatter In Figure 2, a cluster around the origin is

plot of the parameters is shown in Figure 1. observed. This group with a low number of ar-

Figure 2 shows the same data, but the axes are ticles and small and sometimes negative trends

changed so that the cluster near the origin can will probably require special cooperation mech-

be seen clearly. anisms. There is also another group with an in-

The first observation in Figure 1 is that the creasing number of articles, although current

average number of articles per 1,000 people is levels are low. This group naturally has good

much lower when compared to the US or Cen- potential for increasing their international col-

tral Europe and the Baltics. However, the rate laboration.

Figure 1. Publication Performance of Chosen Countries

Note: Scatter plot of chosen countries or country groups as a function of the number of articles per 1,000 people and the rate of increase of the number of articles.

Figure 2. Publication Performance of Chosen Countries

Note: It shows the central part of Figure 1.

Finally, a cluster around the World average taking over the main center status from Russia.

or slightly higher can be identified that are com- Collaborations of Turkey, Iran, and Poland are

posed of relatively large countries, i.e., China, also increasing. When the spatial distance is ex-

Iran, Malaysia, Russia, and Turkey. This group amined, they discover collaborations between

can serve as engines of scientific cooperation by countries with large separation are sparse, and

playing the role of local hubs. most collaborations are between neighboring

In the elaborate study of Gui, Liu and Du countries, but long-distance collaborations are

(2019), a detailed bibliographic analysis is per- increasing. The core-periphery analysis of Gui,

formed for the 65 BRI countries using interna- Liu and Du (2019) reveals that there is a de-cen-

tionally co-authored articles. Firstly, they show tralization trend and the core countries are

that the cooperation among these countries has China, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Russia, and

increased significantly from 2000 to 2018, and Turkey in 2018. Analysis of the networks also

the network is significantly decentralized. Sec- shows that China replaces Russia as the center

ondly, the topology structure shows that Rus- of the largest sub-network while two other sub-

sia, Poland, and China are core countries with networks emerge. One is an Eastern Europe net-

star-shaped links, that is, connections with a work around Poland, and the other is an Arab

large number of countries. However, China is network around the Saudi Arabia-Egypt axis.

Possible Mechanisms for Effective Scientific Cooperation We can classify the cooperation mechanisms as bilateral or multilateral according to the number of parties involved. It is also possible to classify mechanisms as symmetric or asymmetric based on the nature of the cooperation. In some cases, there is a dominant party of cooperation, and in other cases, the relation is more balanced. How the cooperation is funded can also characterize the cooperation. Most bilateral scientific collaboration agreements are project-based, and each party covers its own expenses. In multilateral cooperation, the parties can form a pool from A common language is an accelerating factor in international technological collaboration. (CGTN, 2018CGTN (2018). The source article does not provide a separate full bibliographic entry for this citation.) which the joint projects are funded based on merit, or a “fair return” principle can be adopted. This kind of cooperation, which requires strong

The language diversity among the BRI commitments from the governments, is estab-

countries can be an important roadblock. One lished through inter-governmental agreements.

large cluster in the area is the former Soviet For the case of the fair return, the European

countries group in which Russian was the lingua Space Agency can be a good example. Each mem-

franca, and higher education was mostly in Rus- ber country contributes to the pool with a cer-

sian. Although Russian is still spoken by most tain percentage of its gross domestic production

of the educated people, the number of Russian (GDP), and there are complicated mechanisms

speakers is decreasing in non-Russian countries to ensure that each country receives benefits pro-

(Pavlenko 2008). China is promoting Manda- portional to its contribution in the long run.

rin Chinese via scholarships in China and other For the other kind of cooperation, The

mechanisms. For example, Masood (2019) ex- Framework Programmes for Research and

plains how Mandarin becomes an optional lan- Technological Development of the European

guage choice in Pakistan. However, Chinese is Union can be considered as a good example. It

very far from being the lingua franca of BRI. The can also be a good template for future cooper-

obvious choice is English for cooperation pro- ation among BRI countries because it is one of

grams for the foreseeable future. Although the the largest regional cooperation programs, if not

existence of former British colonies in the region the largest, with its budget of 188 billion Euros

like India and Pakistan is facilitating this option, from 1984 to end of 2020, excluding the upcom-

the proportion of English speakers as a second ing Horizon Europe programme (Reillon 2015).

language is very low in most of the area, includ- There is no explicit rule to ensure that the re-

ing Central Asian countries. turns from the program match the contribution

of a country, and the funds are distributed based ally, some BRI countries are very far from others.

on competition. Most of the BRI countries are developing econ-

When we consider current cooperation omies. Physical connections through the motor-

mechanisms among BRI countries, the most sig- way, railroad, and maritime road networks are

nificant ones are implemented by ANSO, whose being established along with the Digital Belt and

members are very heterogeneous, including uni- Road, but the construction is in its early phase.

versities, science academies, research funds, and A large variety of languages are spoken with rad-

centers. According to the 2019 Annual Report ically different writing systems.

of ANSO, the 2019 budget was around 0.5 mil- Despite these difficulties, it is possible to es-

lion USD. This structure is very convenient for tablish a mechanism similar to EU Framework

networking and as a platform to discuss how to Programmes if some principles are adopted.

create more structured inter-governmental bod- First of all, a “fair return” policy is necessary to

ies that can fund larger-scale projects and other avoid friction due to the possible unfair distri-

collaborative actions. Over time, the core started bution of the funds. Secondly, instead of forcing

by ANSO should evolve to a program similar to contributors to allocate a certain percentage of

European Framework Programmes. However, their GDP, they should be allowed to start with

the circumstances of BRI countries should be small contributions. The main idea is to create

considered to be able to have an efficient and win-win situations that will encourage govern-

working mechanism. ments to contribute more funds to be able to get

more from the created value. In the beginning, this should be even easier because the projects First of all, a “fair return” policy is will focus on “low-hanging fruits” first if a comnecessary to avoid friction due to petitive environment among projects can be esthe possible unfair distribution of

the funds. tablished. The “BRI Research Area” will proba-

bly start with a fraction of the countries involved

The European countries have a long list of in BRI; hence the rules for new members should

factors that make scientific collaboration among be clear from the very beginning. There might be

them easier. Existing economic and political inte- an overlap between “European Research Area”

gration process under the umbrella of European and “BRI Research Area”, which will be an op-

Union, sharing the same geographical area and portunity for a group of countries who will be

cultural background, high economic develop- able to benefit from both Worlds.

ment level, being well-connected both digitally Of course, the selection of projects with

and physically, speaking mostly languages from competition and the “fair return” principle might

the same language family are only some of them. be conflicting and may require complicated op-

In the BRI area, some economic, political, eration rules. Additional rules are necessary to

or security alliances are forming (like the Asso- encourage cooperation from distant countries,

ciation of Southeast Asian Nations or Shanghai to avoid local clustering, and help better inte-

Cooperation Organisation), but they cover only gration. Also, the number of participants to joint

part of the area. Geographically as well as cultur- projects should be forced to be large because,

as indicated by Guerrero Bote, Olmeda‐Gómez preceding Framework Programmes’ experience.

and de Moya‐Anegón (2013), the gain in impact Wang, Chen and Guo (2018) also point out the

increases with the number of countries involved. difficulty of project management in such multi-

The emergence of a dominant core should also national cooperation schemes and emphasizes

be avoided because, first of all, the main idea the necessity of supervision mechanisms so that

is to have an inclusive and balanced model. A the system operates efficiently while ensuring

dominant core may even lead to brain drain in optimum use of resources and increasing overall

the long run. Masood (2019) gives an example cooperation gain.

of how China tries to prevent brain drain into The choice of the research areas is para-

China. However, preventing brain drain should mount for the success of collaboration mecha-

be a primary concern for the whole design of the nisms. The principles and decision procedures

mechanisms because losing very scarce human for the research areas should be fixed at the

resources would be detrimental to the develop- beginning but the major areas and sub-fields

ment goals of many small nations. should be updated every several years, similar to

the Framework Programmes. Due to the self-organizing nature of collaboration (Wagner and Leydesdorff 2005), scientists and other shareholders will maximize the impact of the research within each sub-field. Details of research areas are discussed in the following sub-section. The involvement of the private sector and specifically small business in the research and development projects deserves special attention since the private sector is an important driver of economic growth and job creation. The instruments designed within the Framework Programmes can again be a good template, but they will need to be tailored for the much more complicated BRI landscape. The Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Or-

In multilateral cooperation, the parties can form a ganization (APSCO), established in 2005 as an

pool from which the joint projects are funded based

on merit, or a “fair return” principle can be adopted. inter-governmental organization (Yan 2021),

(Chinadaily, 2021Chinadaily (2021). The source article does not provide a separate full bibliographic entry for this citation.) may serve as an example, and conclusions can be drawn from the experience. It was not estab-

On the other hand, as another conflicting lished in the context of BRI, but it is still rele-

requirement, the funding mechanisms should vant as an example, and the definition of the ge-

be kept simple. In the Eight Framework Pro- ographic extend overlaps considerably with the

gramme, the European Commission simplified BRI countries. The working principle of APSCO

the administrative procedures based on the is similar to that of ESA. The contribution of a

country is calculated according to its economic Strategy on Sustainable Development, and Big

development level and GDP per capita using a Data.” and “Human Well-being Orientations:

formula, and a fair return principle is adopted. Agriculture and Food Security, Public Health,

Nevertheless, Yan (2021) states the problems Poverty Alleviation, Disaster reduction, and

in the implementation of that principle and Technology Transfer.” (ANSO, 2021bANSO (2021a). The source article does not provide a separate full bibliographic entry for this citation.).

underlines that organizational development is still necessary. Nie (2019) also emphasizes the

difficulty of implementation of the fair return Research on the environment

principle and discusses the legal difficulties of and climate change stands out as

integrating APSCO into the BRI paradigm. We an important and indispensable

can infer from the discussions by Nie (2019) and research area as the World faces a deepening crisis right now, and the Yan (2021) that the organization should have the BRI area is not immune to it. flexibility to adapt to the changing circumstances.

Cooperation Areas In the global context, Yang, et al. (2016)

Before determining possible cooperation areas suggested scientific work on “smart cities, indus-

within the BRI framework, we need to decide on trial transformation, pollution control, oceanic

the criteria for evaluation of the candidate areas: resources exploitation … (and) clean energy”.

• Problems related to phenomena covering They also recommended better use of remote

large geographical areas require international sensing for monitoring natural resources. On

cooperation; hence research addressing such the other hand, Barakos and Mischo (2018) sug-

problems should be preferred. gested scientific and industrial collaboration in

• Research that has a large potential to rare earth elements in the framework of BRI. Liu

turn into commercial activities or sustainable (2015) proposed several research subjects in the

services should be preferred to support domain of geography, like geopolitical studies or

development. foreign direct investment theories.

• Areas in which the contributing countries Research on the environment and climate

have human resources or other resources change stands out as an important and indispen-

should be preferred. sable research area as the World faces a deep-

• Research that will help mitigating ening crisis right now, and the BRI area is not

problems created or aggravated by the immune to it. On the contrary, most of the area

implementation of BRI should have priority. is arid and semi-arid and hence more vulnera-

ANSO describes the special focus areas ble to climate change (Li et al., 2015Li et al. (2015). The source article does not provide a separate full bibliographic entry for this citation.). Also, the

of collaborative research as follows: “Scientif- consequences of the implementation of BRI may

ic Research Orientations: Climate Change and worsen the existing environmental problems

Adaptation, Natural Disaster, Water Resource (Ascensão et al., 2018Ascensão et al. (2018). The source article does not provide a separate full bibliographic entry for this citation.; Hughes et al., 2020Hughes et al. (2020). The source article does not provide a separate full bibliographic entry for this citation.).

and Water Security, Air Pollution and Human Energy is another indispensable research

Health, Ecosystem and Biodiversity, Combating area, which is closely coupled to the environ-

Desertification, Energy Security, S&T Policy and mental problem. The BRI is a development pro-

gram, and development without energy is not tions should evolve into an intergovernmental

possible. Hence, research on clean energy is es- organization that will create the “BRI Research

sential. Area.” For such an organization, the following

Water and agriculture are also critical prob- principles are proposed:

lems that require research and development • A “fair return” principle should be

efforts. Binlei (2020) showed empirically that adopted.

cooperation in agriculture creates substantial • In the selection of projects, a competitive

benefits through spill-over effects. The scientific mechanism should be used.

component will enhance these effects. • Flexible contribution options that will

Earth observation and remote sensing is a allow the countries to increase their contribution

cross-cutting area that serves environmental, over time should be available.

climate change, water and agriculture-related • The rules for acceptance of new members

research among others. Digital Belt and Road should be designed to facilitate the organization

(DBAR) (Guo et al., 2017Guo et al. (2017). The source article does not provide a separate full bibliographic entry for this citation.) is a structure that to grow.

serves this purpose and can be integrated into • The emergence of a dominant core

the higher-level organization in the future. should be avoided.

ICT is a cross-cutting area as well. Especial- • The administrative procedures should be

ly, big data, artificial intelligence, and robot- kept as simple as possible.

ics research will catalyze all the research areas • The involvement of the private sector,

mentioned above. Digital Silk Road (Guo et al., and especially that of small businesses, should

2018), which is a part of the BRI, will facilitate be encouraged.

the research in this area. • Some of the important research areas are

The above items are not exhaustive and environment and climate change, energy, water,

more areas can be identified. Although social and agriculture. Earth observation, big data,

sciences are beyond the scope of this study, it is artificial intelligence, and robotics are cross-

clear that collaboration in social sciences, spe- cutting areas.

cifically history, archeology, linguistics, anthro- However, the subject is very large and can-

pology, geography, economics and international not be covered in the volume of a single paper.

law, will serve the goals of the BRI program. Hence, more discussion is necessary on various

platforms, and each element should be analyzed

Conclusions in detail from different perspectives.

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