Motivations for global scientific collaboration: researchers’ perspectives

Global research collaboration is intensifying (Wagner CS, Park HW, & Leydesdorff L, 2015) due to many reasons including increasing complexity of research, escalating costs of equipment, need to address cross-border problems and advancement of information and communication technologies. But what are researchers own motivations to collaborate across national borders? Global research collaboration often involves considerable transaction costs of communication and interaction across long geographical distances and diverse national and organizational cultures. Nevertheless, scientists increasingly engage in such collaborations co-authoring papers, undertaking common projects and jointly training emerging researchers. What drives them? Is it increasing specialization in science when only a small number of scientists around the globe can have a high quality in-depth discussion on a specific topic? Is it ever more sophisticated research equipment that only few (collaborative) laboratories can provide? Is it a need to acquire additional research funding abroad? Or is it a joy of collaborating with a network of colleagues and friends from other countries? And how do these different motivations interact? Is there a hierarchy among them? How do they differ across research fields and scientific disciplines? Do motivations change and evolve during long-term international research collaborations lasting for more than 10 or 20 years (Ulnicane, 2015)? And how do motives for global research collaboration differ from motivations to collaborate nationally and locally (Beaver & Rosen, 1978)? In order to answer these questions and to develop a systematic in-depth understanding of researchers’ motivations to collaborate globally, this paper builds a mid-range theory (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007) based on extensive review of existing literature and empirical material. Empirical material on researchers’ motivations draws on multiple data sources and research methods: longitudinal case studies of research collaborations, project, publication, citation and CV data, 61 semi-structured interviews and site visits to 31 research institutes. Collaborations in an emerging field of nanosciences in five European countries (Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands and UK) are studied. In addition to developing a mid-range theory on researchers’ motivations for global scientific collaboration, the paper also addresses implications for knowledge policies at national and international level. As policy-makers at international organizations, European Union and national governments increasingly consider funding schemes and evaluation indicators to facilitate global research collaboration, it becomes relevant to consider if these policies indeed facilitate or sometimes rather hinder productive global research collaborations.