Source-linked AI summary
The relationship between scientists' research performance and the degree of internationalization of their research
Giovanni Abramo, Ciriaco Andrea D'Angelo, Marco Solazzi
TL;DR
The paper addresses the limited evidence on whether individual researchers’ performance relates to their international collaboration. It analyzes Italian university researchers’ 2001-2005 publications using co-authorship as a collaboration proxy, finding positive effects of both productivity and average quality on international collaboration.
Problem
Research collaboration’s determinants are unclear, particularly whether individual scientists’ research performance affects their degree of international collaboration.
Method
The study analyzes Italian university researchers and their 2001-2005 publications, using bibliometric co-authorship measures and researcher-level performance indicators.
Results
Both research productivity and average quality have positive effects on scientists’ international collaboration, with productivity more influential for intensity and both having similar weight for propensity.
Takeaways & Limitations
International collaboration is positively associated with both the volume and average quality of an individual scientist’s research output.
Takeaways & Limitations
The aggregate-level results require empirical validation for top scientists and for differences by the geographic origin of foreign partners.
Abstract
from arXiv · showhide
Policy makers, at various levels of governance, generally encourage the development of research collaboration. However the underlying determinants of collaboration are not completely clear. In particular, the literature lacks studies that, taking the individual researcher as the unit of analysis, attempt to understand if and to what extent the researcher's scientific performance might impact on his/her degree of collaboration with foreign colleagues. The current work examines the international collaborations of Italian university researchers for the period 2001-2005, and puts them in relation to each individual's research performance. The results of the investigation, which assumes co-authorship as proxy of research collaboration, show that both research productivity and average quality of output have positive effects on the degree of international collaboration achieved by a scientist.
1. Introduction
The study addresses whether individual scientists’ research performance is related to their international collaboration, a question underexamined relative to collaboration’s assumed benefits. It examines Italian university researchers and compares productivity with average output quality across disciplines.
- The study uses the scientist, rather than the research product, as its unit of analysis.
- Existing research generally assumes that collaboration improves individual performance, while this study examines the reverse direction: whether higher-performing researchers collaborate more internationally.
- The paper asks whether a university scientist’s research performance relates to international collaboration intensity and propensity.
- The research compares the effects of productivity and average quality on international collaboration and investigates differences among scientific disciplines.
- The analysis covers all 82 Italian universities, approximately 26,000 research staff, and more than 124,000 WoS publications from 2001-2005.
2. Methodology, dataset and indicators
The study uses a bibliometric design based on co-authored international-journal publications, with individual scientists characterized by performance and internationalization indicators. Its dataset covers Italian university researchers in selected hard-science sectors during 2001-2005.
- Methodological approach: The analysis treats research activity as an input-output process and adopts publications as its principal observable research output.
- Methodological approach: Co-authorship is used as a documented proxy for research collaboration, although collaborations may not produce publications and co-authorship may not reflect actual collaboration.
- Data, sources and field of observation: The dataset derives from the authors’ ORP bibliometric database, based on WoS records for Italian university publications from 2001-2005.
- Data, sources and field of observation: The analysis is restricted to 165 hard-science scientific disciplinary sectors and excludes researchers who entered, left, or changed sector or university during the observation period.
- Indicators: Research performance is measured by productivity, fractional productivity, and average quality based on field-, year-, and publication-type-standardized citations.
- Indicators: Internationalization is measured through collaboration intensity, collaboration rate, and collaboration amplitude.
3. General analysis
International collaboration was substantial across Italian university research and varied by discipline and geography. Physics showed the highest relative collaboration, while most cross-national publications involved only one foreign nation.
- 41,445 of 128,487 publications, or 32.3%, were cross-national and involved 160 foreign nations.
- Physics, Earth sciences, and Mathematics and computer sciences had the highest percentages of cross-national publications within their areas.
- Physics had the highest international collaboration rate profile: even its lowest-rate sector reached 37.5%, exceeding all sectors in Civil engineering and architecture and Medicine.
- Four of the ten highest-rate scientific disciplinary sectors were in Physics, while three were in Earth sciences.
- 72.4% of cross-national publications involved one foreign nation, whereas cases involving more than five foreign nations represented less than 2%.
- The percentage of cross-national publications increased from 31.4% in 2001 to 33.3% in 2005, with Medicine strongly conditioning the overall growth.
4. Research performance and international collaboration
Using researcher-level correlations and regression models, the study tests how productivity and average quality relate to international collaboration. Both indicators are positively associated with collaboration intensity and rate, with productivity generally more influential for intensity.
- The analysis covers 21,504 researchers and begins with correlations between internationalization and performance indicators.
- Intensity: Productivity correlates strongly with international collaboration intensity, with Spearman coefficients of 0.653 for productivity and 0.566 for fractional productivity.
- Rate: Productivity and average quality show weaker correlations with international collaboration rate: 0.345, 0.289, and 0.286 respectively for productivity, fractional productivity, and average quality.
- Intensity: Regression coefficients indicate positive relations between performance regressors and international collaboration intensity.
- Intensity: For international collaboration intensity, a standard-deviation increase raises the odds of at least one cross-national publication by 7.521 times for productivity and 1.424 times for average quality.
- Rate: For international collaboration rate, a standard-deviation increase raises the odds of a higher rate by factors of 1.565 for productivity and 1.525 for average quality.
- Rate: The positive rate relationship persists with minimal variations across university disciplinary areas.
5. Conclusions
Using a bibliometric analysis of Italian hard-science researchers and WoS publications, the study finds that international collaboration is positively associated with productivity and research quality, with effects varying by collaboration measure. These results remain broadly stable after coauthor standardization and across disciplinary areas, although aggregate findings require further validation.
- Method: The analysis uses individual university researchers as the unit of analysis, covering 26,000 Italian hard-science scientists and 124,000 WoS-listed publications from 2001-2005.The approach is bibliometric and includes models suited to count data.
- Results: International collaboration volume is positively correlated with researcher productivity, while its intensity has a weaker correlation with average research quality.Subsequent regression analyses confirm the earlier results.
- Results: Productivity has a larger impact than average quality on collaboration intensity, whereas both have similar weight in the propensity to collaborate internationally.The distinction indicates that productivity and quality relate differently to the amount and likelihood of foreign collaboration.
- Robustness: The results do not change significantly when productivity is standardized for the number of coauthors and continue to hold at the level of individual disciplinary areas.These checks support the stability of the general findings across alternative specifications and disciplinary breakdowns.
- Limitations: Findings from the aggregate level should undergo specific empirical validation, including comparisons involving top scientists and the geographic origin of foreign partners.The authors identify these as directions for further research.