  The debate on the role of women in the academic world has focused on various
phenomena that could be at the root of the gender gap seen in many nations.
However, in spite of the 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 of the 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.
