RESEARCH PERFORMANCE OF CHINESE GEOSCIENTISTS AND INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION: Implication from Bibliometric Analysis of AGU Papers

International collaboration has become more and more important for Chinese geoscientists. To examine the effect of international collaboration on their research performance quantitatively, all the papers published by Chinese geoscientists in American Geophysical Union(AGU) journals in the period from 2001 to 2010 are included in the bibliometric analysis. It is indicated that among the top 50 Chinese geoscientists, there are only two individuals who have not co-authored any papers with foreign scientists. Moreover, internationally collaborated papers receive higher citations than independent researches by domestic scientists. The top 10 papers that receive the most citations are all coauthored with international collaborators. This results clearly show that international collaboration can greatly enhance research performance of Chinese geoscientists.