Gender differences in research collaboration

The debate on the role of women in the academic world has focused on various phenomena that could be atthe root ofthe gender gap seen inmany nations. However, in spite ofthe ever more collaborative character of scientific research, the issue of gender aspects in research collaborations has been treated in a marginal manner. In this article we apply an innovative bibliometric approach based on the propensity for collaboration by individual academics, which permits measurement of gender differences in the propensity to collaborate by fields, disciplines and forms of collaboration: intramural, extramural domestic and international. The analysis ofthe scientific production of Italian academics shows that women researchers register a greater capacity to collaborate in all the forms analyzed, with the exception of international collaboration, where there is still a gap in comparison to male colleagues.