Does scientific collaboration pay off? A novel bibliometrics study of the impact of international collaboration on scientific publications over time

Abstract

This research investigates recent trends and developments in the scope and impact of international collaboration in research publications. A number of prior studies in the field of Research & Development (R&D) have outlined the factors influencing an increasing internationalization in R&D. We transfer these findings in a complete sample of publication data from the years 2008–2015 in order to find out and describe how researchers in the two academic fields Health Care/Clinical Medicine and Business & Economics collaborate with foreign-based colleagues. We analyze how this research by international teams performs in terms of received citations, compared to their national counterparts. We find that international teams generally receive more citations than national ones. Furthermore, we outline how the number of countries with relevant publication numbers has grown and diversified over the last years, and author teams generally became larger and more international. In a last step, we show how emerging countries built up competence and knowledge over time, as an increase in received publication citations follows at a delayed pace to an increase in publication numbers. While there are some differences between the two academic fields Health Care/Clinical Medicine and Economics & Business, with, for example the former having approximately around ten times more publications per year, than the latter, the major structural trends and developments are similar in both fields, outlining the robustness of our analysis.

The footprint of human-induced climate change on heat-related deaths in the summer of 2022 in Switzerland

“…As for most of western and central Europe, the summer of 2022 was also exceptionally hot and dry in Switzerland. Average temperatures between June and August 2022 ranked second since the beginning of the records, exceeded only by 2003 [21]. According to a recent report, Geneva, Sion, and Lugano experienced 41, 49, and 38 hot days with maximum temperatures above 30 • C, respectively, the second-highest number in the observational record after 2003 [21].…”

“…Average temperatures between June and August 2022 ranked second since the beginning of the records, exceeded only by 2003 [21]. According to a recent report, Geneva, Sion, and Lugano experienced 41, 49, and 38 hot days with maximum temperatures above 30 • C, respectively, the second-highest number in the observational record after 2003 [21]. The infamous summer of 2003 resulted in nearly 1000 excess deaths in Switzerland [22].…”

“…Average temperatures between June and August 2022 ranked second since the beginning of the records, exceeded only by the infamous summer of 2003 when a large increase in excess mortality was reported in this country [21,22]. Additionally, according to the official federal estimates, this season was exceptionally severe in terms of excess mortality with nearly 1800 excess deaths among the population aged 65 and older between June and August 2022 [23].…”