An evolving international research collaboration network: spatial and thematic developments in co-authored higher education research, 1998–2018

Abstract

Co-authored research articles in the disciplinarily heterogeneous field of higher education have dramatically increased in this century. As in other fields, rising international co-authorships reflect evolving international collaboration networks. We examine higher education research over two decades, applying automated bibliometric topic identification and social network analysis of 9067 papers in 13 core higher education journals (1998–2018). Remarkable expansion in the volume of papers and co-authorships has, surprisingly, not resulted in a more diverse network. Rather, existing co-authorship patterns are strengthened, with the dominance of scholars from a few Anglophone countries largely maintained. Researchers globally seek to co-author with leading scholars in these countries, especially the US, UK, and Australia—at least when publishing in the leading general higher education journals based there. Further, the two-mode social network analysis of countries and topics suggests that while Anglophone countries have led the development of higher education research, China and Germany, as leading research-producing countries, are increasingly influential within this world-spanning network. Topically, the vast majority of co-authored papers in higher education research focuses on individual-level phenomena, with organizational and system or country-level analysis constituting (much) smaller proportions, despite policymakers’ emphasis on cross-national comparisons and the growing importance of university actorhood. We discuss implications thereof for the future of the multidisciplinary field of higher education.

Celebrating Higher Education’s 50 years: trends, absences, and opportunities

“…Other increments in terms of collaborating countries worth noting across Europe include Norway (from 1 country in the period 1972–2009 to 11 countries in the period 2016–2021), Finland (from 3 to 13 countries in the same periods), Denmark (from 1 to 9 countries), Italy (from 0 to 10 countries), Germany (from 2 to 14 countries), and Belgium (from 2 to 11 countries). These patterns confirm a trend of rising international collaborations in higher education research (Akbaritabar & Barbato, 2021 ; Avdeev, 2021 ; Fu et al, 2022 ; Vlegels and Huisman, 2021 ).…”

“…Interrelatedly, in examining collaborative patterns in Studies in Higher Education , Calma and Davies ( 2015 ) found that more articles were published by single authors in the 1980s but pointed to ‘a trend away from solo- to multiple-author research in recent decades’ (2015:10). Other studies have also confirmed a trend to collaborate more in publications in higher education research (Akbaritabar & Barbato, 2021 ; Avdeev, 2021 ; Fu et al, 2022 ; Vlegels & Huisman, 2021 ).

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“…The authorship patterns in HE suggest that research has been especially nationally oriented and strongly rooted in national higher education systems (especially in the USA, the UK, and Australia, see next section), a feature that was noted even by the first editor of the journal in 1982 (Ross, 1982 ) and later by Tight ( 2014 ) in the broad field of higher education studies. However, this pattern might change given the importance attributed to international collaboration broadly and in higher education research specifically (Akbaritabar & Barbato, 2021 ; Avdeev, 2021 ; Fu et al, 2022 ; Vlegels & Huisman, 2021 ). These international collaboration patterns are discussed further in “ I nternational collaboration.”…”

“…According to Rumbley et al ( 2014 ), in 2014, there were 217 centres or institutes for the study of higher education around the world, 50 of which were in the USA, 45 in China, 18 in the UK, and 11 in Japan. In terms of article publications, higher education research has been steadily growing, especially since 2007 onwards (Fu et al, 2022 ; Kwiek, 2021 ; Vlegels and Huisman, 2021 ).…”

“…For the last 8 years, the journal has occupied the quartile 1 in the Journal Citation Report as a result of its high impact factor (in 2021, HE occupied position 47 out of 267 with an impact factor of 3.94 (Journal Citation Report, 2021)). Recent studies (Akbaritabar & Barbato, 2021 ; Fu et al, 2022 ) have found that HE is the most prolific journal in higher education research in terms of total number of publications followed by Studies in Higher Education .…”