Study shows high rate of international collaboration among ex-Soviet bloc researchers

A new study shows that researchers based in former Soviet republics have an ‘unusually large’ rate of international collaboration.

The research was carried out by academics at the University of Oxford and Russia’s HSE University. They found that in 12 of 15 former Soviet bloc nations, more than half the papers indexed in the Web of Science database since 1993 were co-authored with researchers abroad, compared with about a third in Russia.

Study author Dr Maia Chankseliani, associate professor of comparative and international education in Oxford’s Department of Education, said: ‘Unusually large proportions of the Web of Science publications from these countries are internationally co-authored. The practice of international co-authorship is much more widespread in this region than globally, where only one in five publications is internationally co-authored.

‘Researchers from relatively resource-poor contexts may be working harder to tap into international research funding. In other words, they may be relying on the international rather than the national funding sources.’

Membership of the EU among Baltic states may also have contributed to an increase in output and collaboration, say the study authors.

Read the full story in Times Higher Education (registration required).