International Research Collaboration and International Research Orientation: Comparative Findings About European Academics

Abstract

In this study, international research collaboration (IRC) and international research orientation (IRO) have been studied at the micro-level of individual academics from the university sector (N = 8,466, 11 European systems). Both were studied crossnationally, cross-disciplinarily, and cross-generationally. This study differs from most existing internationalization literature in its sample (Europe) and focus (patterns of internationalization in research), using more standard methods (a multivariate model approach). It addresses questions about the patterns of IRC and IRO, international publishing, and the predictors of IRC, or what makes some European academics more prone to collaborating with international colleagues in research than others. In the context of changing incentive and reward systems in European academic science, which are becoming more output oriented, it is ever more important for individual academics to cooperate internationally (as well as to co-publish internationally). "Internationalists" increasingly compete with "locals" in university hierarchies of prestige and for access to project-based research funding across Europe. Evidence is presented that co-authoring publications internationally is still a rare form of research internationalization in Europe (50.8% of academics co-author publications internationally). However, as compared with other world regions, the percentage of European academics collaborating internationally in research (63.8%) is very high. A striking cross-national differential within the youngest European generation of academics was found, which may be a strong barrier to intra-European research collaboration in the future.

Social stratification in Higher Education: What it means at the micro‐level of the individual academic scientist

“…Those who do not collaborate internationally produce only a marginal percentage of their publications as co‐authored with colleagues from other countries. However, they represent a substantial proportion of the academic profession in Europe (Table , second column; cross‐national differences are substantial but not studied here; see Kwiek, ). Those who do not collaborate in international research account for about half of academic scientists in the professions; about four out of ten in engineering, humanities and social sciences; about one third in life sciences and medical sciences; and about a quarter of those in the physical sciences and mathematics.…”

“…To begin, the international stratification of research was explored across countries, discipline clusters and generations. Additionally, we investigated the correlation between IRC and individual research productivity and systematically compared research productivity and international publication co‐authorship among internationalists and locals in each of the 11 countries (Kwiek, ).…”

Internationalists and locals: international research collaboration in a resource-poor system

“…Being male significantly increases the odds of involvement in international research collaboration (by 69%) in 11 European countries (see Kwiek 2018a). In Fox et al (2017Fox et al ( : 1304, women engineers identified funding and finding collaborators as external barriers to internationalization while personal or family concerns were perceived as significantly less important barriers for themselves than for others.…”

“…Beyond the numerous studies on general research collaboration and gender, several surveybased studies have focused specifically on the role of gender in international research collaboration. In most cases, the findings indicate that being female is a negative predictor of international research collaboration (Rostan et al 2014;Vabø et al 2014;Kwiek 2018a). To cite one survey-based global study, "the prototypical academic figure in international research collaboration is a man, in his mid 50s or younger, working as a professor in a field of the natural sciences at a university" (Rostan et al 2014: 130).…”

Deep impact: re-conceptualising university research impact using human cultural accumulation theory

“…Since the case is situated within a university-non-university collaborative practice context, it may seem unsurprising that the case study produces findings concerning collaboration and networking. Conversely not all research collaborations between universities are 'true examples of collaboration', SIP being selected because it has been identified as an exemplar of research collaboration (Huang 2014;Kwiek 2018;Woolcock and Murihead 2008).…”