By Gali Halevi | Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, 1428 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10029| Email: gali.halevi@mssm.edu

Henk F. Moed | Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering Antonio Ruberti, University of Rome  “La Sapienza”, 00185, Italy | Email: hf.moed@gmail.com

Judit Bar-Ilan | Judit Bar-Ilan, Department of Information Science, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, 5290002, Israel. Email: Judit.Bar-Ilan@biu.ac.il

With the globalization of science and the availability of online resources to help identify potential international collaborations, researches are seeking opportunities outside their institutions and sometimes outside their country of origin. It is unknown, however, whether these types of scientific mobility have positive effects on the productivity or impact of their work. On the one hand, mobility can be positive, since researchers moving to a new affiliation and/or country might find opportunities to expand their network and further their knowledge and expertise. On the other hand, the period of adjustment and familiarity with a new affiliation and/or country can potentially delay the publication of new studies. In addition, one’s affiliation with a new institution might take time to be recognized by the scientific community.

By using data on the number of affiliations, countries, number of publications and citations for 300 top performing researchers between 2010 and 2015, we sought to discover whether researchers’ “productivity” in terms of the number of publications they produce and the “impact” of these publications in terms of number of total and relative citations they receive, is affected by mobility.

Here are a few examples:

Mobility between at least two affiliations and two countries has a positive effect on the average number of publications and citations in Neuroscience.

Data source: Elsevier™

Top oncology researchers have at least two affiliations in their profiles.  Mobility between institutions and countries has a positive effect on oncological research output.  Two countries and two affiliations seem to generate more research as well as citations in Oncology.

Data source: Elsevier™

Infectious Diseases researchers see the most benefit when researchers move between two affiliations in one country.

Data source: Elsevier™

Conclusions:

  1. Neuroscience researchers see the most benefit when researchers move between two affiliations and two or three countries.
  2. Oncology researchers see the most benefit when researchers move between two affiliations in one or two countries.
  3. Infectious Diseases researchers see the most benefit when researchers move between two affiliations in one country.

References:

Colledge, L. & Verlinde, R. (2014). SciVal Metrics Guidebook. Elsevier.com. Retrieved April 8, 2015, from http://www.elsevier.com/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/184749/scival-metrics-guidebook-v1_01-february2014.pdf 

Fernandez-Zubieta, A., Geuna, A., & Lawson, C. (2013). Researchers’ mobility and its impact on scientific productivity.  Social Sciences Research network.com. Retrieved May 22, 2015, from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2244760

Moed, H. F., & Halevi, G. (2014). A bibliometric approach to tracking international scientific migration. Scientometrics, 101/3: 1987-2001.