Growing scientific collaboration between Hong Kong and Mainland China since the handover: a 20-year bibliometric analysis

The handover of Hong Kong launched a new era for Hong Kong and Mainland China, featuring an increasingly closer relationship. The purpose of this study was to investigate the performance and dynamics of scientific collaboration between Hong Kong and Mainland China over the past 20 years since the handover. Bibliometric analysis of scientific output, research area distribution, document type and collaborative mainland province were conducted based on publication data from the science citation index expanded database. The results showed that the number of HK-Mainland collaborative publications grew rapidly, contributing to the scientific output of Hong Kong, with the percentage share increasing to more than half in 2016. Research area analysis suggested the occurrence of gradually deepening and widespread communication between Hong Kong and Mainland China. Of fifty research areas in Hong Kong, more than half of scientific publications were completed via collaboration with the mainland in 2017. The mainland provinces that collaborated with Hong Kong showed a widening geographic scope and a simultaneous increase in collaborative activity. A distribution of Guangdong Province and Beijing as the two most active hotspots with a dozen active spots across the mainland was gradually formed. The collaborative activity of Guangdong Province has exceeded that of Beijing since 2011, while that of Guangzhou and Shenzhen increased linearly and exponentially respectively, and contributed at least 70% to Guangdong Province every year. The relationship between Hong Kong and Mainland China in science and technology has become closer than ever before.