International Survey of Engineering Faculty: Trends in Collaboration with Chinese and Russian Scientists

This study presents data from 44 major research university schools of engineering predominantly in the USA but also in Canada, Australia and the UK – about how faculty are collaborating or not with Chinese and Russian scientists. The study gives detailed information about how the cooling of relations between the USA and other major English-speaking western countries on the one hand, and China and Russia on the other – have impacted scientific and scholarly collaboration in engineering and science related fields. The study pinpoints the percentage of engineering faculty who have co-authored articles with either Russian or Chinese scientists or who have conducted collaborative research with Russian or Chinese scientists. The report also looks into trends in the use of Chinese and Russian postdocs, graduate students and visiting scholars, and at how the newly confrontational stance in international relations has impacted such flows and exchanges of scientific personnel. Survey participants give their opinion of the likely course of scientific collaboration with Russian and Chinese scientists at their institutions, and their opinions of the more restrictive attitudes that have emerged in recent years. The study also looks at the extent to which scholars handle classified or controlled materials and their self-assessment on how clear they are on the restrictions such materials require.