Collaborating across Borders: Challenges and Choices in Joint Survey Research between Local and Foreign Scholars

Abstract

Joint projects between academics based in different parts of the world are on the rise. 1 Two trends have facilitated this development: an increase in the number of non-US citizens who receive their doctoral degrees from American universities in the past 20 years (National Science Foundation 2018) and the emergence of the Internet as a new tool of communication. As a result, American and non-American scholars have more opportunities to foster academic relationships, which then lead to joint research projects. The prevalence of these joint projects is not without challenges. This article analyzes some of these challenges and highlights the key choices that affect such collaborative efforts from the perspective of a local scholar based outside of the United States. 2 The specific challenges in joint projects depend on the type of research. This article focuses on survey research that is conducted in the local scholar's country together with foreign scholars. In particular, I draw on two surveys that my coauthors and I conducted among Turkish citizens (Getmansky, Sinmazdemir, and Zeitzoff 2018) and

The Publication Gender Gap, Collaboration, and an Index of Inclusion for Scholars Publishing Peer-Reviewed Research

“…Many wide-ranging studies also share a positive underlying view of collaboration (Butler, Butler, and Rich 2008; Frasure-Yokley et al 2020; Herrick, Matthias, and Nielson 2015; McDermott 2010; McDermott and Hatemi 2010; Sigelman 2009; Wildavsky 1986). Collaboration has been widely discussed as necessary for the internationalization of scholarship (Appleton and Mazur 2006; Bleck, Dendere, and Sangaré 2018; Mazur 2005; Sinmazdemir 2019). However, collaboration is connected to questions of recognition (Biggs 2008).…”