Global Collaboration Research Strategies for Sustainability in the Post COVID-19 Era: Analyzing Virology-Related National-Funded Projects

Abstract

In the post-COVID-19 era, virology-related research, which not only depends on the governments as its main source of funding but also requires international and interdisciplinary collaborations, is recognized as an essential defense for sustainability. Few published studies have examined the trend, but only for certain viruses before the mid-2010s. Moreover, it is challenging to define generally accepted virology-related research fields due to its broad spectrum. Thus, it is time that we confront the unprecedented pandemic to understand the status of nationally supported projects in developed nations to establish international collaborative research strategies from an interdisciplinary perspective. In this study, 32,365 national-funded projects were collected from the US, EU, and Japan and assigned to five scientific fields to conduct a cluster analysis. Then, an expert-based approach was utilized to define an individual cluster. Moreover, a comparative analysis between nations was carried out to determine if there was a competitive edge for collaboration. As a result, a framework for virology-related research areas was constructed to provide the status quo and differences between nations’ research capabilities, thereby eliciting practical global research and development (R&D) cooperation to achieve a common agenda and a direction for goals in the post-COVID-19 era. These findings have implications for viral response R&D, policy, and practice for future pandemics. A systematic approach based on scientific evidence and an R&D collaboration strategy between industry and academia is essential to resolve the interdisciplinary barriers between countries and promote sustainable virus R&D collaboration.

International R&D Collaboration for a Global Aging Society: Focusing on Aging-Related National-Funded Projects

“…To understand the interdisciplinary characteristics of the research fields related to these national-funded research projects, we used the ASJC classification model in the machine learning process by employing the Author keywords from approximately one million articles found in Scopus (i.e., feature) and the ASJC codes assigned to each paper (i.e., label). After that, based on similarity (which was calculated according to the ASJC classification model) and on procedures of previous studies [ 32 , 33 ], we assigned three ASJC codes to each national-funded research project; we described the probability of relevancy of each ASJC code that was assigned based on the title and abstract of the national-funded research project. Moreover, we applied the 95% threshold probability to improve our understanding over the relatedness between the assigned ASJC codes and the national-funded research projects.…”

“…All nodes in the network were displayed based on the titles of the research fields present in the ASJC codes, and the font size was presented based on the frequency of the co-occurrence of each ASJC code in comparison with the other codes. By visualizing this network structure, we can figure out the relationship between the ASJC codes [ 33 , 34 ]. In this study, we used the modularity-based clustering method from VOSviewer (Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands, Version 1.16.15) [ 35 ].…”

Research and Development Investment and Collaboration Framework for the Hydrogen Economy in South Korea

“…To establish an R&D investment and collaboration framework for the national planning strategy for the Korean transition into a hydrogen economy, the target research domain must be divided into small segments, after which information on the current status and trends of the research segments of the targeted research domains must be afforded to discuss the direction of future research, as well as propose investment-requiring research fields [51]. As remarked by a prior study [52], this procedure is the cornerstone that ensures the strengthening of the coordination among stakeholders by reducing uncertainty regarding the information on the different statuses of different target fields of knowledge, thereby improving the quality of the decision-making process that relates to the national R&D planning strategy [53].…”

“…Based on previous studies [51,52,54,55], a co-occurrence technique was employed to identify the hydrogen-economy-related research fields. The number of times the ASJC codes appeared together in a project group revealed the relevance of that project.…”

Greening Universities with Mode 3 and Quintuple Helix Model of Innovation–Production of Knowledge and Innovation in Knowledge-Based Economy, Botswana

“…World Health Organization (2020) expresses that sunlight and high air temperature could defeat the virus. Therefore, an interdisciplinary collaboration (including the natural environment of the society) is essential for the post-COVID-19 period as per a study of 32,365 nationally funded sustainability projects from the USA, EU, and Japan (Lee et al, 2020).…”