Publication strategies and age of researchers

Attitudes of the periphery towards the model of knowledge production imposed by the centre take on two fundamentally different forms, which might be labelled as a distinction between internationalists and locals (or cosmopolitan and locals) (Merton 1973, Kwiek 2018. Yeung (2001) recognizes three possible attitudes available for researchers not from the centre: (1) to play the game as an insider, (2) to play the game as an outsider and (3) to exit the game altogether. For the purpose of our study we suggest a modification of the Yeung’s typology and we distinguish three types of scholars outside the centre • Insiders. - staying in the academic institution located outside of the centre, but becoming recognized part of the mainstream academic life by the centre and having well developed network of academic contacts in the universities of the core area “being admitted to the club”), • “Imitators” – researchers who desire to adapt to the methodological patterns imposed by the centre and attempt to be present in international academic circulation. They may participate in the international networks of academics, but their position in the network is less central than of the insiders. • “Separatists” - a characteristic attitude is the refusal to follow the patterns and forms of activity preferred by the centre. The researcher concentrates mainly on publication in local languages and in local journals. We expect that younger scholars are more open for internationalization and adjust more to the relatively new incentives to publish in reputable international journals rather than in local journals or chapters in edited books. Empirically the study is based on detail bibliometric analysis (number of publications, their citations, language of publications etc.) of publications of 130 local government researchers in eight European countries.