International cooperation of Brazilian research engineers: Patterns of collaboration based on a survey of the literature

In recent years, engineering research has become global and collaborative. In this paper we analyzed the engineering research productivity of Brazil, one of the countries showing significant economic growth in the first decade of the twenty-first century. We have used the Science Citation Index of Web of Science to find out the patterns of research between Brazil and seven Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela); and between Brazil and countries of the major industrial democracies or G8 group: France, United States, United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada. This survey of the literature of engineering clearly demonstrates the utility of well-designed bibliographic databases like the Web of Science; they can be very effective tools for identifying interesting research trends. Finally, conducting research jointly also presumes a place in a strategic network of nations, institutions or organizations able to take a regional or inter-regional role under common interests. Therefore, it is important to understand the geography of scientific and technical cooperations.