Is academia becoming more localised? The growth of regional knowledge networks within international research collaboration

AbstractIt is well-established that the process of learning and capability building is core to economic development and structural transformation. Since knowledge is ‘sticky’, a key component of this process is learning-by-doing, which can be achieved via a variety of mechanisms including international research collaboration. Uncovering significant inter-country research ties using Scopus co-authorship data, we show that within-region collaboration has increased over the past five decades relative to international collaboration. Further supporting this insight, we find that while communities present in the global collaboration network before 2000 were often based on historical geopolitical or colonial lines, in more recent years they increasingly align with a simple partition of countries by regions. These findings are unexpected in light of a presumed continual increase in globalisation, and have significant implications for the design of programmes aimed at promoting international research collaboration and knowledge diffusion.

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Output regularities of China's international collaboration research projects funded by NSFC

Library Hi Tech ◽

10.1108/lht-03-2020-0075 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Xiujuan Chen ◽

Zhiqiang Zhang ◽

Jinjing Guo

Keyword(s):

International Collaboration ◽

International Research ◽

Research Collaboration ◽

Research Output ◽

Research Capacity ◽

Analysis Model ◽

Joint Research ◽

International Research Collaboration ◽

Content Type ◽

Joint Research Project

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide theoretical basis and data support for researchers to choose appropriate international partners, provide a basis for Chinese research funding agencies, such as National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) to formulate international research collaboration (IRC) strategies and policies and provide recommendations for the improvement of the internationalization level of China's basic scientific research.Design/methodology/approachBased on existing research, this study took output of “Major International (Regional) Joint Research Project” (MIJRP) funded by NSFC and participated by Chinese scholars in the meantime as the analysis object, proposed hypotheses and constructed the indicators of IRC and research output (RO). In addition, the mathematical statistics was used to compare the RO of China's IRC and nonIRC, and the statistical analysis model was used to measure the influence on RO of collaboration country's research capacity, research collaboration between China and US, scope of international research collaboration and reprint author country.FindingsThe RO of China's IRC is higher than that of nonIRC; research capacity of collaboration country has no inevitable effect on the RO of China's IRC; the RO of China's IRC participated by Americans is higher than that without American scholars; expanding the scope of China's IRC to some degree can increase RO; the RO of China's IRC led by foreigners is higher than that led by Chinese. In particular, China–US IRC and foreign scholars acting as the reprint author are two major factors for the RO of China's IRC.Originality/valueMost of the traditional research on IRC are based on the co-author papers, and this study tried to analyze the characteristics and regularities on IRC from a new view of international collaboration projects, which can be a supplement to the traditional international collaboration research on co-author papers.

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Editorial: Mapping the Structure of International Research Collaboration Network and Knowledge Domains on Electronic Commerce in the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research

Journal of theoretical and applied electronic commerce research ◽

10.4067/s0718-18762015000300001 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 0-0 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Guillermo Armando Ronda-Pupo ◽

Aurora Sánchez ◽

Narciso Cerpa

Keyword(s):

Electronic Commerce ◽

International Research ◽

Research Collaboration ◽

Collaboration Network ◽

International Research Collaboration ◽

Knowledge Domains

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Generational differences in international research collaboration: A bibliometric study of Norwegian University staff

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0260239 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (11) ◽

pp. e0260239

Author(s):

Kristoffer Rørstad ◽

Dag W. Aksnes ◽

Fredrik Niclas Piro

Keyword(s):

International Collaboration ◽

International Research ◽

Generational Differences ◽

Research Collaboration ◽

Research Question ◽

Publication Output ◽

International Research Collaboration ◽

Main Research ◽

Individual Level ◽

Age Cohorts

This paper addresses the relationship between age and international research collaboration. The main research question is: do younger researchers collaborate more internationally than their senior colleagues? A common assumption is that younger generations are generally more internationally oriented than older generations. On the other hand, senior researchers may have larger international networks compared to younger colleagues. The study is based on data for 5,600 Norwegian researchers and their publication output during a three-year period (44,000 publications). Two indicators for international collaboration are used: The share of researchers involved in international collaboration measured by co-authorship and the average proportion of publications with international collaboration per researcher. These indicators reflect two different dimensions of international collaboration. Although the findings are not consistent across age cohorts and indicators of internationalization, the overall trend is that international collaboration tends to decline with increasing age. This holds both at aggregate levels and within groups of academic positions. However, the generational differences are not very large, and other variables such as the field of research explain more of the differences observed at an individual level.

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What Can Influence the Quality of International Collaborative Publications: A Case Study of Humanities and Social Sciences International Collaboration in China’s Double First-Class Project Universities

Social Sciences ◽

10.3390/socsci10030109 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 109

Author(s):

Zhe Cheng ◽

Xingfu Lu ◽

Xiong Xiong ◽

Chuanyi Wang

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

International Collaboration ◽

International Research ◽

Research Collaboration ◽

International Research Collaboration ◽

World Class ◽

Humanities And Social Sciences ◽

High Level ◽

World Class Universities ◽

The Impact

International collaboration is one of the effective ways to enhance the impact of scientific research papers. In this research, international research collaboration papers published by world-class universities in the field of humanities and social sciences from 2015 to 2019 were selected as the research object, and the effective enhancement of the impact of international research collaboration papers was found to not be dependent on expanding the scale of international research collaboration, but rather on selecting researchers with different international backgrounds and from high-level institutions for collaboration. It was also discovered that, in the field of humanities and social sciences, despite a relatively low proportion of international research collaboration papers being led by Chinese scholars, the Chinese research is characterized by a higher impact compared with the research led by non-Chinese scholars. In light of this, a series of proactive measures should be taken by China’s world-class universities, such as actively participating in and initiating international collaboration, selecting high-level research collaborators, and attracting scholars from different countries to engage in research collaboration in the field of humanities and social sciences.

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The Impact of International Research Collaboration Network Evolution on Chinese Business School Research Quality

Complexity ◽

10.1155/2020/7528387 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2020 ◽

pp. 1-20 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Wei Fang ◽

Sheng Dai ◽

Lulu Tang

Keyword(s):

International Research ◽

Business School ◽

Research Collaboration ◽

Positive Impact ◽

Research Quality ◽

Collaboration Network ◽

Degree Centrality ◽

International Research Collaboration ◽

Chinese Business

The University of Texas at Dallas has proposed 24 top journals (UTD24) covering all areas related to management. UTD24 are currently the most authoritative management journals. Institutions or research scholars who have published papers in these journals are considered to have a high academic level. This study uses the paper quality published by an institution in the UTD24 journals to indicate the research quality of this institution and takes the papers published by Chinese Business School in the UTD24 journals from 2000 to 2018 as the research object. By analyzing the staged evolution process and the research hotspot of international research collaboration network (IRC network) of Chinese Business School, this paper summarizes and analyzes the factors that influence the quality of papers published by Chinese Business School in UTD24 journals: degree centrality of an institution, betweenness centrality of an institution, the degree of attention of an institution, the degree of novelty of an institution, and the number of countries cooperating with the institution. This paper divides paper quality into two parts: the total number of papers and citations per paper of an institution. Among them, degree centrality and betweenness centrality of the institution have a significant positive impact on the total number of papers of the institution. The degree of attention and the number of countries cooperating with the institution have a significant positive impact on citations per paper, and the degree of novelty has a significant negative impact on citations per paper.

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Scientists’ response to global public health emergencies: A bibliometrics perspective

Journal of Information Science ◽

10.1177/01655515211030866 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 016555152110308

Author(s):

Leyan Wu ◽

Jinqing Yang ◽

Dan Wang ◽

Qikai Cheng ◽

Wei Lu

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

International Collaboration ◽

Research Collaboration ◽

Academic Community ◽

Collaboration Network ◽

Health Crisis ◽

Health Events ◽

Public Health Emergencies ◽

The Past ◽

The Impact

The unprecedented COVID-19 outbreak at the end of 2019 has produced a worldwide health crisis. Scientific research, especially international research collaboration, is crucial to deal successfully with the epidemic. This article aims to review the response modes, and especially the international collaboration characteristic, of the academic community to similar public health events in the past. Based on relevant studies of four major public health emergencies in the past, the major public health emergencies were regarded as ‘new knowledge’ in the academic field. By using knowledge diffusion indicators, such as the breadth and speed of diffusion, and combined with the development characteristics of the event, this article explores the diffusion characteristics of the four major public health emergencies in the academic exchange system and then identifies the academic community’s response mode to the outbreaks. In addition, the characteristics of international collaboration in response to the public health events and the impact of international collaboration on the academic community’s response are analysed. Through the analysis of the international collaboration network, the cooperative groups and core countries in the research collaboration network related to the major public health emergencies are obtained. In terms of COVID-19, it is found that the response speed and intensity of scientists have been significantly improved, but more focus should be given to international collaboration. Our findings could be beneficial to both decision-makers and researchers in policy formulation and conducting research, respectively, to optimally deal with COVID-19 and possible outbreaks in the future.

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