This study is a comparative analysis of R&D performance and research collaboration relationship among ten ocean research institutes in the Republic of Korea and foreign nations through analyzing SCI publications from 2008 to 2012. The result indicated that SIO, WHOI, and NOC had the highest number of publications, while research institutes in East Asian nations including NFRDI, KIOST, IOCAS, and JAMSTEC had the notable growth in publication. In terms of number of publication per researcher, SIO, WHOI, and NOC had relatively high number. In terms of publication per research budget (1 billion KRW), number of publication was high in the order of IOCAS, NOC, GEOMAR, SIO. The number of Citations Per Publications (CPP) was high among WHOI, SIO, NOC, GEOMAR, JAMSTEC, and IFREMER, which are North American, European and Japanese institutes. The average Impact Factor (IF) of journal submission per publication for IFREMER, KIOST and JAMSTEC was relatively increasing, while the number was fluctuating in other institutes. The analysis of research collaboration among institutes around the globe showed that the collaboration in Asia was relatively closed, whereas it was more open in Europe. In the case of Europe and Asia, higher number of research collaboration among nations also increased the quality of submitted articles.