Shaping the European research collaboration in the 6th Framework Programme health thematic area through network analysis

This paper aims to analyse the collaboration network of the 6th Framework Programme of the EU, specifically the “Life sciences, genomics and biotechnology for health” thematic area. A collaboration network of 2,132 participant organizations was built and several variables were added to improve the visualization such as type of organization and nationality. Several statistical tests and structural indicators were used to uncover the main characteristic of this collaboration network. Results show that the network is constituted by a dense core of government research organizations and universities which act as large hubs that attract new partners to the network, mainly companies and non-profit organizations.