The research collaboration in Chinese cardiology and cardiovasology field

China has become the world's second-largest economy after the United States since 2010. The cardiovascular diseases in have deteriorated significantly in resent 20 years. There is few published report about collaboration in Chinese Cardiology and Cardiovasology (C&C) field so far. The current study reveals the status of the collaboration activities in Chinese C&C field.

Articles published in 5 journals related to C&C from 2000 to 2010 were retrieved from China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and VIP Journal Integration Platform(VJIP). Methods such as co-authorship, co-word analysis, centrality, k-core, m-slice were used in this study.

Although the percentage of co-authored papers and the average number of authors per paper in Chinese C&C field were generally increasing, the geographic distribution of the research collaboration activities was extremely uneven. There were 87 authors and 5 institutions ranking in top 1% of all the three centralities but 92.8% authors belonged to 10-Core and below. 90.93% authors are among 1-slice, 2-slice and 3-slice. We found 63 cohesive research groups in the focuses of research collaboration for Coronary artery disease and myocardial infarction, etc.

The government should provide important role in supporting or encouraging the research collaboration among different regional areas. Based on the author ranking in the centralities, we will be able to select academic leaders more easily. The research studies in the field of collaboration network will provide important role to assist researchers to master the forefront research subjects, and to help research scientists to apply for scientific project funding.