Research Leadership Flow Determinants and the Role of Proximity in Research Collaborations Networks

TL;DR

This study analyzes how various proximity dimensions influence research leadership flow among Chinese institutions, revealing declining effects over time and providing insights for policy and collaboration strategies.

Contribution

It offers the first quantitative analysis of five proximity dimensions affecting research leadership flow, based on a large dataset of Chinese biomedical research articles from 2013-2017.

Findings

Research leadership flow is influenced by institutional size and proximity factors.

The impact of proximity dimensions on leadership flow has been decreasing recently.

The study provides evidence to inform research funding and collaboration policies.

Abstract

Characterizing the leadership in research is important to revealing the interaction pattern and organizational structure through research collaboration. This research defines the leadership role based on the corresponding author's affiliation, and presents, the first quantitative research on the factors and evolution of five proximity dimensions (geographical, cognitive, institutional, social and economic) of research leadership. The data to capture research leadership consists of a set of multi-institution articles in the life sciences and biomedical during 2013-2017 from Web of Science Core Citation Database. Our sample consists of 484,903 articles from 244 Chinese institutions, which have been the primary affiliation of the corresponding author for at least one paper (with multiple institutions) in each year. A Tobit regression-based gravity model indicates that research leadership mass of both the leading and participating institutions and the geographical, cognitive, institutional, social and economic proximity are important factors of the flow of research leadership among Chinese institutions. In general, the effect of these proximity for research leadership flow has been declining recently. The outcome of this research sheds light on the leadership evolution and flow among Chinese institutions, and thus can provide evidence and support for grant allocation policy to facilitate scientific research and collaborations.