Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The influence of R&D intensity of countries on the impact of international collaborative research: evidence from Spain

  • Published:
Scientometrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A positive influence of international collaboration on the impact of research has been extensively described. This paper delves further into this issue and studies to what extent the type of collaborating country—high, medium or low R&D intensive country—and which country is the leader in the research may influence the impact of the final scientific output. Among 9,961 papers co-authored by scientists from Spain and from another country (bilateral collaboration) during 2008–2009, papers with high R&D intensive countries predominated (60 %) and received the highest number of citations. This holds true in eight out of nine fields, being Social Sciences the one which benefited the most from partnerships with high R&D intensive countries. Mathematics emerges as a special case where other factors such as the partner’s specialisation in the field may have a greater influence on research impact than the level of investment in R&D of the collaborating country. No significant influence of the type of country leading the research on the impact of the final papers is observed in most fields. Research policy implications are finally discussed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. a) High R&D countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States of America.

    b) Low R&D countries: Ethiopia, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, Mozambique, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, Zambia.

    c) Similar to Spain countries: China, Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Portugal.

    Note: only countries included in the Spanish publications are shown.

  2. Agriculture, Biology and Environment (AGRI); Biomedicine (BIOM); Chemistry (CHEM); Clinical Medicine (CLIN); Engineering/Technology (ENGI); Humanities (HUMA); Mathematics (MATH); Multidisciplinary (MULT); Physics (PHYS) and Social Sciences (SOCI).

  3. Kruskal–Wallis test for non-parametric distributions.

  4. Mann–Whitney test for non-parametric distributions.

  5. Kruskal–Wallis test for non-parametric distributions.

  6. Since we observed that: (a) apart from the author with two addresses (one in Spain and a second one in other country) there was at least one co-author with a Spanish affiliation and one co-author with a foreign affiliation in a given paper; or (b) Spanish and foreign authors’ names coexisted in a given paper.

References

  • Adams, J., Gurney, K. A., & Marshall, S. (2007). Patterns of international collaboration for the UK and leading partners. A report commissioned by the UK Office of Science and Innovation. Leeds: Evidence Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bordons, M., Aparicio, J., & Costas, R. (2013). Heterogeneity of collaboration and its relationship with research impact in a biomedical field. Scientometrics, 96(2), 443–466.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bordons, M., & Barrigón, S. (1992). Bibliometric analysis of publications of Spanish pharmacologists in the SCI (1984–89). II. Contribution to subfields other than “Pharmacology & Pharmacy” (ISI). Scientometrics, 25(3), 425–446.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Costas, R., van Leeuwen, T. N., & Bordons, M. (2012). Referencing patterns of individual researchers: Do top scientists rely on more extensive information sources? Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(12), 2433–2450.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Filippo, D., Aparicio, J., & Gómez, I. (2009). Measuring the benefits of International collaboration. A case study of the relationship between Latin-American and European countries. In B. Larsen & J. Leta (Eds.), Proceedings of the 12th international conference of the ISSI (pp. 920–921). Brasil: BIREMEPPAHO/WHO and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

  • Didegah, F., & Thelwall, M. (2013). Which factors help authors produce the highest impact research? Collaboration, journal and document properties. Journal of Informetrics, 7, 861–873.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edler, J., Fier, H., & Grimpe, C. (2011). International scientist mobility and the locus of knowledge and technology transfer. Research Policy, 40(6), 791–805.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eurostat (2014). Statistics explained. Retrieved July 15, 2014 from http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Glossary:R_%26_D_intensity

  • Frandsen, T. F., & Nicolaisen, J. (2010). What is in a name? Credit assignment practices in different disciplines. Journal of Informetrics, 4, 608–617.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • García-Romero, A., Navarrete-Cortés, J., Escudero, C., Fernández-López, J. A., & Chaichío-Moreno, J. A. (2009). Measuring the influence of clinical trials citations on several bibliometric indicators. Scientometrics, 80(3), 749–762.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garson, G. D. (2013). Logistic regression: Binary and multinomial. Asheboro: Statistical Associates Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gazni, A., & Didegah, F. (2011). Investigating different types of research collaboration and citation impact: A case study of Harvard University’s publications. Scientometrics, 87(2), 251–265.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gazni, A., Sugimoto, C. R., & Didegah, F. (2012). Mapping world scientific collaboration: Authors, institutions and countries. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(2), 323–335.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glänzel, W. (2001). National characteristics in international scientific co-authorship relations. Scientometrics, 51(1), 69–115.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glänzel, W., Schubert, A., & Czerwon, H. J. (1999). A bibliometric analysis of international scientific cooperation of the European Union (1985–1995). Scientometrics, 45(2), 185–202.

  • Glänzel, W., & Schubert, A. (2004). Analysing scientific networks through co-authorship. In H. F. Moed, et al. (Eds.), Handbook of quantitative science and technology research (pp. 257–276). Dordrecht: Kluwer.

  • Goldfinch, S., Dale, T., & DeRouen, K. (2003). Science from the periphery: Publication, collaboration and “periphery effects” in article citation rates of the New Zealand Crown Research Institutes 1995–2000. Scientometrics, 57(3), 321–337.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gómez, I., Bordons, M., Morillo, F., Moreno, L., Aparicio, J., & González-Albo, B. (2012). La actividad científica del CSIC a través del Web of Science. Estudio bibliométrico del período 2007–2011 (pp. 1–1400), Madrid: IEDCYT, CCHS, CSIC. http://hdl.handle.net/10261/65287

  • González-Albo, B., Aparicio, J., Moreno, L., & Bordons, M. (2013). Leaders and partners in international collaboration and their influence on research impact. En: J. Gorraiz, E. Schielbel, C. Gumpenberger, M. Hörlesberger, H. Moed (Eds.), Proceedings of the 14th international conference of the ISSI (pp. 2044–2047), Viena.

  • González-Albo, B., Bordons, M. (2011). Articles vs. Proceedings papers: do they differ in reseach relevance and impact? A case study in the Library and Information Science field. Journal of Informetrics, 5(3), 369–381.

  • Gorraiz, J., Reimann, R., & Gumpenberger, C. (2012). The importance of bilateral and multilateral differentiation in the assessment of international collaboration—a case study for Austria and six countries. Scientometrics, 91(2), 417–433.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guerrero-Bote, V. P., Olmeda-Gómez, C., & Moya-Anegón, F. (2013). Quantifying the benefits of international scientific collaboration. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 64(2), 392–404.

  • Harzing, A. W., & Giroud, A. (2014). The competitive advantage of nations: An application to academia. Journal of Informetrics, 8, 29–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haslam, N., Ban, L., Kaufmann, L., Loughnan, S., Peters, K., Whelan, J., & Wilson, S. (2008). What makes an article influential? Predicting impact in social and personality psychology. Scientometrics, 76(1), 169–185.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jiménez-Contreras, E., Torres-Salinas, D., Ruíz-Pérez, R., & Delgado-López-Cozar, E. (2010). Investigación de excelencia en España: ¿protagonistas o papeles secundarios? Medicina Clínica (Barc), 134(2), 76–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jonkers, K., & Cruz-Castro, L. (2013). Research upon return: The effect of international mobility on scientific ties, production and impact. Research Policy, 42, 1366–1377.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Katz, S., & Hicks, D. (1997). How much is a collaboration worth? A calibrated bibliometric model. Scientometrics, 40(3), 541–554.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Katz, S., & Martin, B. (1997). What is research collaboration? Research Policy, 26(1), 1–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Luukkonen, T., Persson, O., & Sivertsen, G. (1992). Understanding patterns of international scientific collaboration. Science, Technology and Human Values, 17, 101–126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marusic, A., Bosnjak, L., & Jeroncic, A. (2011). A systematic review of research on the meaning, ethics and practices of authorship across scholarly disciplines. PLoS ONE, 6(9), e23477. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.002347.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mattsson, P., Laget, P., Vindefjard, A. N., & Sundberg, C. J. (2010). What do European research collaboration networks in life sciences look like? Research Evaluation, 19(5), 373–384.

  • Mattsson, P., Sundberg, C. J., & Laget, P. (2011). Is correspondence reflected in the author position? A bibliometric study of the relation between corresponding author and byline position. Scientometrics, 87(1), 99–105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McVeigh, M. E., & Mann, S. J. (2009). The journal impact factor denominator: Defining citable (counted) items. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 302(10), 1107–1109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Narin, F., Stevens, K., & Whitlow, E. (1991). Scientific cooperation in Europe and the citations of multinationally authored papers. Scientometrics, 21(3), 313–323.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nomaler, O., Frenken, K., & Heimeriks, G. (2013). Do more distant collaborations have more citation impact? Journal of Informetrics, 7, 966–971.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reagans, R., & Zuckerman, E. W. (2001). Diversity and productivity: The social capital of corporate R&D teams. Organization Science, 12(4), 502–517.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • The Royal Society. (2011). Knowledge, networks and nations: Global scientific collaboration in the 21st century. London: Royal Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Leeuwen, T. N. (2009). Strength and weakness of national science systems. A bibliometric analysis through cooperation patterns. Scientometrics, 79(2), 389–408.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Raan, A. (1997). Science as an international enterprise. Science and Public Policy, 24(5), 290–300.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wagner, C. S., Brahmakulam, I., Jackson, B., Wong, A., & Yoda, T. (2001). Science and technology collaboration: Building capacities in developing countries. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waltman, L. (2012). An empirical analysis of the use of alphabetical authorship in scientific publishing. Journal of Informetrics, 6, 700–711.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wren, J. D., Zozak, K. Z., Johnson, K. R., Deakyne, S. J., Schilling, L. M., & Delavalle, R. P. (2007). The write position. A survey of perceived contributions to papers based on byline position and number of authors. EMBO Reports, 8(11), 988–991.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Financial support from the Spanish National R&D Plan (Research project CSO2008-06310) is acknowledged. We are very grateful to Isabel Gómez, for her comments on a previous version of this paper and to Laura Barrios and José Manuel Rojo for their statistical advice. The comments of two anonymous referees which contribute significantly to improve the content of the paper are also acknowledged.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Philosophy (IFS), Centre for Human and Social Sciences (CCHS), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Albasanz 26-28, 28037, Madrid, Spain

    María Bordons & Luz Moreno

  2. Centre for Human and Social Sciences (CCHS), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Albasanz 26-28, 28037, Madrid, Spain

    Borja González-Albo & Javier Aparicio

Authors
  1. María Bordons
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Borja González-Albo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Javier Aparicio
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Luz Moreno
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to María Bordons.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Bordons, M., González-Albo, B., Aparicio, J. et al. The influence of R&D intensity of countries on the impact of international collaborative research: evidence from Spain. Scientometrics 102, 1385–1400 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-014-1491-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-014-1491-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation