International scientific collaboration among Iranian researchers during 1998‐2007
| Pages | 433-446 |
| Date | 07 September 2010 |
| Published date | 07 September 2010 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07378831011076675 |
| Author | Zouhayr Hayati,Fereshteh Didegah |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
International scientific
collaboration among Iranian
researchers during 1998-2007
Zouhayr Hayati and Fereshteh Didegah
LIS Department, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
Abstract
Purpose – The paper aims to investigate the rate of Iranian researchers collaboration with their
colleagues in other countries in science citation index (SCI). In addition, it seeks to investigate the
visibility of publications by Iranian researchers, and particularly the visibility of papers resulting from
international collaboration.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs the survey research method to answer
research questions. Any publication recorded in the SCI database from 1998 to 2007 with at least one
Iranian author was recognized and transferred to a database in Excel. The total records were 33,813.
This number mostly includes articles, letters, notes, and reviews.
Findings – The results showed that Iranian researchers have had scientific collaboration with
115 countries, and that their numbers have increased between 1998 and 2007. The results also showed
that the number of domestic articles per year was 2-3.5 times more than international ones. Investigating
international collaboration in different subject areas revealed that geosciences had the biggest number
of publications co-authored internationally. Iran’s main partners were the USA, Canada, and UK,
respectively. European researchers were the main counterparts of Iranian researchers. In addition,
Iranian researchers had mostly co-published with their colleagues in advanced countries. Among
Iranian universities and research institutions, the University of Tehran had the highest collaboration at
the international level. The results revealed that the average number of citations received by
international co-authored publications was more than those received by domestic co-authored
publications.
Originality/value – The paper shows the situation of international collaboration among Iranian
researchers and the impact of publications resulting from international collaboration.
Keywords Internationalcooperation, Iran, Referencing, Research, Qualitative research
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
There has been increasedinterest in participation in international scientific collaboration
networks in recentyears. Scientific collaboration is one means of advancing research and
enhancing publication capacity (Pao, 1992). Collaboration can be beneficial for several
reasons: it providesa large pool of available ideas, methods, and resources, and it allows
cost sharing and time saving as a result of division of labor (Avkiran, 1997; Katz and
Martin, 1997). Collaboration is often a critical aspect of scientific research, which is
dominated by complex problems, rapidly changing technology, dynamic growth of
knowledge, and highly specialized areas of expertise. An individual scientist can
seldom provide all of theexpertise and resources necessary to addresscomplex research
problems.
Nowadays, it is more common for scientists to conduct research in collaboration with
their colleagues in different institutions, countries, or disciplines. In recent decades,
international scientific collaboration has greatly intensified (Gla
¨nzel et al., 1999),
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0737-8831.htm
International
scientific
collaboration
433
Received 23 February 2010
Revised 6 April 2010
Accepted 15 June 2010
Library Hi Tech
Vol. 28 No. 3, 2010
pp. 433-446
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0737-8831
DOI 10.1108/07378831011076675
To continue reading
Request your trial