Actors in the Fields of International Cooperation Bringing together heads and knowledge means either training or augmenting science. Fusing money with intelligence produces experts and expertise. Finally, when money and knowledge are paired, patents and applicable results might be generated. When all three elements, personnel, money and knowledge, come together, you have a research unit, be it a university, an extra-university research unit, a science based enterprise or a project. This will be intensified by the introduction of the EURO, because it will be much easier for state governments and institutions to benchmark their relative research activities, thus, pressure towards optimizing national research efforts on a European level will mount.
Universities are the humus out of which all other scientific research grows.
Thus they are of prime importance for the imprinting of international scientific cooperation as a most natural element of scientific work from the very beginning of scientific training and work. This is not as banal as it may sound. In some disciplines the discussion of international research results is routine, the use of the English language is a necessary part of everyday teaching and learning. The figures significant for scientific collaboration show an interesting development. Significant growth is to be noted especially in Europe.