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

In the past decade, collaborations between China and the European Union (EU) have been rapidly expanding. Hitherto, however, little research has been carried out to assess the implementation and impacts of such collaborations. This article presents an in-depth analysis of the scientific collaborations between China and the EU28, focusing on the major research priorities and benefits of these collaborations. To shed light on the initiatives of collaborations, corresponding authors are detected and classified into three categories: Chinese local, Chinese abroad, and non-Chinese. Evidence shows that academic collaborations between China and the EU28 have been mainly set up by Chinese researchers. In the fast-growing China–EU collaborative fields, the revealed comparative advantage scores in China have improved substantially. In the EU28, however, there is no such obvious improvement.