Dominance and leadership in research activities: Collaboration between countries of differing human development is reflected through authorship order and designation as corresponding authors in scientific publications

Abstract

IntroductionScientific collaboration is an important mechanism that enables the integration of the least developed countries into research activities. In the present study, we use the order of author signatures and addresses for correspondence in scientific publications as variables to analyze the interactions between countries of very high (VHHD), high (HHD), medium (MHD), and low human development (LHD).MethodologyWe identified all documents published between 2011 and 2015 in journals included in the Science Citation Index-Expanded categories’ of Tropical Medicine, Infectious Diseases, Parasitology, and Pediatrics. We then classified the countries participating in the publications according to their Human Development Index (HDI), analyzing the international collaboration; positioning and influence of some countries over others in cooperative networks; their leadership; and the impact of the work based on the HDI and the type of collaboration.ResultsWe observed a high degree of international collaboration in all the areas analyzed, in the case of both LHD and MHD countries. We identified numerous cooperative links between VHHD countries and MHD/LHD countries, reflecting the fact that cooperative links are an important mechanism for integrating research activities into the latter. The countries with large emerging economies, such as Brazil and China stand out due to the dominance they exert in the collaborations established with the United States, the UK, and other European countries. The analysis of the leadership role of the countries, measured by the frequency of lead authorships, shows limited participation by MHD/LHD countries. This reduced participation among less developed countries is further accentuated by their limited presence in the addresses for correspondence. We observed significant statistical differences in the degree of citation according to the HDI of the participating countries.ConclusionsThe order of signatures and the address for correspondence in scientific publications are bibliographic characteristics that facilitate a precise, in-depth analysis of cooperative practices and their associations with concepts like dominance or leadership. This is useful to monitor the existing balance in research participation in health research publications.

International authorship and collaboration across bioRxiv preprints

“…3b ). Similar patterns have been observed in previous studies: González-Alcaide et al (2017) found countries ranked lower on the Human Development Index participated more frequently in international collaborations, and a review of oncology papers found that researchers from low- and middle-income countries collaborated on randomized control trials, but rarely as senior author (Wong et al 2014).…”

“…3 ). While there are many reasons these dynamics could arise, it is worth noting that the current corpus of bioRxiv preprints contains the same familiar disparities observed in published literature (Mammides et al 2016; Burgman, Jarrad, and Main 2015; Wong et al 2014; González-Alcaide et al 2017). Critically, we found the three characteristics of contributor countries (low international collaboration count , high international collaboration rate , low international senior author rate) are strongly correlated with each other ( Fig.…”

Patterns of authorship in ecology and evolution: First, last, and corresponding authorship vary with gender and geography

“…However, a very large proportion of the English‐speaking authors are in developed countries, whereas authors from non‐English‐speaking countries are a wide mix of high‐ versus low‐income countries. Thus, rather than an influence of language per se, it may be that authors from less scientifically and economically developed communities are deferring the corresponding author role to their colleagues who are more experienced with publishing in international journals (González‐Alcaide, Park, Huamaní, & Ramos, ).…”

HIV/AIDS research in Africa and the Middle East: participation and equity in North-South collaborations and relationships.

“…These two features may re ect a certain scienti c dependence and subordination among African countries in relation to more developed countries. Moreover, the same situation has been observed in other biomedical research elds that are of special importance to the global South, like tropical diseases, infectious diseases, and pediatrics [22,25,26]. More speci cally, Kelaher et al [27] analyzed randomized controlled trials in the elds of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis that were undertaken in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) from 1990 to 2013, identifying three relevant features associated with research leadership.…”

“…Its economic growth has complemented this boost; together with other BRICS countries, especially China and Brazil, South Africa has laid the groundwork for development by strengthening its educational, healthcare, and social systems [19,20]. Increased investments in research go hand in hand with this strategy, including through establishing collaborative links with the most advanced economies at a scienti c level [21,22]. However, as Adams et al [23] signaled in their study, a myriad of factors affect scienti c productivity and collaboration in African countries apart from structural factors like the level of economic growth or population size.…”