Short abstract

Science has grown tremendously and become globally integrated since the times of the Cold War. We use bibliographic data to document the global network of scientific collaboration throughout fifty years with a focus on early and recent influences of geopolitical tensions and security policy.

Long abstract

Security policy has traditionally influenced science and science policy with systems for export control and counterintelligence in the commercial R&D sector. Public science is now affected as well after policies for Research Security, accompanied by the vague term dual-use technology, were introduced to science policy in the USA in 2021 and in the European Union in 2024.

The present situation differs from the times of the Cold War. Science has grown tremendously and become globally integrated. Fifty years ago, NATO member states dominated public science and only two percent of the articles had co-authors outside of NATO. Now, public science is larger outside of NATO than within and a third of NATO’s articles have external co-authors.

We will use bibliographic data and the indicator Relative Intensity of Collaboration (Fuchs, Sivertsen & Rousseau, 2021) to document the global network of scientific collaboration among forty countries throughout fifty years. Our aim is to provide a broad basis for discussing possible problems with securitizing global science (Shih & Wagner, 2024) Preliminary results indicate that 1) the present collaboration patterns in science do not align with defence alliances, and that 2) security policy only recently influenced these patterns.