Science in an age of globalisation : the geography of research collaboration and its effect on scientific publishing

Although scientific knowledge is considered by many a universal and context-free product, its producers are often embedded in geographically bounded networks of research collaboration. However, in an age of globalisation these local networks of knowledge production are challenged by pressures to make science more efficient and to align its priorities with problems of global relevance such as climate change and worldwide epidemics. Against this background, the dissertation sets out to examine changes in the contemporary geography of research collaboration and explores how these changes affect the publication of research findings in scientific journals. The dissertation starts with introducing a framework to understand how geographical space structures research collaboration among researchers. The two structuring principles in this framework are a logic of proximity that provides solutions for coordination problems in research practice, and a logic of stratification that provides researchers with differential means to engage in collaborations. The logic of proximity mainly follows from the importance of physical co-presence both for carrying out the complex tasks associated with scientific research and for establishing trust in research results. The logic of stratification is an outcome of the reward system in science which provides differential credit to researchers on the base of their past productivity. Globalisation affects these logics through technological advancements in ICTs and mobility, and through the harmonisation of research policies and practices across territories. It is hypothesised in this dissertation that these changes have implications for geographical patterns of research collaboration, and also for the way research findings are communicated in scientific publications. The empirical validation of this framework centers around two main themes that very much bear the imprint of globalisation in science. The first theme concerns the research policies of the European Union that are focused on the harmonisation of regional and national institutions in Europe in order to create an integrated ‘European Research Area’ (ERA) which should make the European research system more efficient and competitive. The Framework Programmes are explicitly designed to facilitate this integration process and in doing so they fund thousands of transnational research projects making it the largest transnational funding scheme in the world. Against this background, Chapter 2 evaluates the extent to which European research collaboration networks are already spatially integrated based on publication and patent data with multiple addresses. The results indicate that research collaborations in Europe are structured by geographical proximities as the choice for collaboration partners is impeded both by the kilometric distance between researchers and by national borders separating them. The chapter also presents some evidence that research collaboration networks are stratified on the base of similarity in productivity and access to resources. This logic of stratification operates irrespective of the location of researchers vis-à-vis each other. The main conclusion that follows from this analysis is that the present efforts towards the creation of ERA are well justified. The empirical study in Chapter 3 develops a dynamic approach to the geography of research collaboration by studying whether the logic of proximity is changing over time. The main argument of this chapter holds that one should make a conceptual distinction between a possible changing effect of geographical distance and a possible changing effect of territorial borders when studying proximity dynamics in research collaboration networks. When making such a distinction in the context of the European research system, the chapter shows that it is primarily the importance of regional and national borders that is decreasing over time, but that the role of geographical proximity in structuring research collaborations is remarkably stable. The findings indicate that globalisation in science is mainly realised through the harmonisation of territorial institutions, but that physical co-presence remains an important coordination device for exchanging complex forms of knowledge that cannot be easily communicated over large distances. The objective of Chapter 4 is to study to what extent the Framework Programmes (FPs), as the main funding instrument of the European Commission, are affecting the geography of European research collaboration. It is hypothesised that, in case the FPs indeed render territorial borders less important, they are likely to create (new) stratified networks of research collaboration that disproportionally consists of high-performance researchers located in Europe’s core regions. Contrary to the expectation no evidence for this hypothesis is found. The presented analysis indicates that the FPs indeed have a substantial effect on promoting international scientific collaboration networks which are still relatively uncommon in comparison to national collaboration networks. However, it is also shown that acquisition of FP funding is rather equally distributed over Europe and that the FPs are more effective in establishing ties between poorly connected researchers than in further strengthening existing ones. When stimulating already existing networks the FPs run the risk of being a substitute for other funding sources. This implies that current EU research policy is in line with the cohesion objective of the European Union. The second theme of this dissertation concerns the global standardization of medical experiments on human subjects. In recent years, proponents of an evidence-based medicine have pushed for standards concerning the conduct of clinical trials and subsequent publication of research findings in clinical trial registers and scientific publications. This standardization process is closely linked to an increase in the number and size of clinical trials that involve scientific researchers and patients from across the globe. The empirical chapters address whether this standardization process has an effect on several aspects of scientific publishing including the constitution of authorship on publications, the communication of evidence after study completion, and the presence of error in scientific publications. In order to analyse these questions, a database is created that links information on registered clinical trial projects (www.clinicaltrials.gov) to scientific publications of the main findings after study completion. Chapter 5 focuses in this respect on the standardization of good clinical practice (ICH-GCP) which has made the exchange of clinical data between geographically dispersed research sites less complicated. This has resulted in a process of global outsourcing with increasing enrolment of patients from emerging economies, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia. The chapter describes this globalisation tendency and studies whether worldwide patient involvement in clinical trials is reflected in the geographical composition of scientific management teams in those trials. The chapter develops an empirical strategy to determine the geographical distribution of management teams by using authorship data from publications reporting on primary outcomes. On the basis of this data it is shown that, given patient involvement, authorships are disproportionally granted to researchers in a few leading countries. The chapter discusses possible adverse consequences of this situation especially concerning the monitoring of clinical trial quality and (the lack of) interactions between researchers that are in immediate contact with patients and researchers that design trials and interpret their results. Chapter 6 concentrates on the publication behaviour of pharmaceutical companies who are well known for their strategy to withhold negative research findings from the scientific literature. To remedy this situation several authorities have recently mandated both registration of clinical trials before study onset and publication of major research findings after study completion. The main question holds under what conditions pharmaceutical companies decide to publish their clinical trial findings either in scientific journals or on the web. The main hypothesis is that under the new institutional context pharmaceutical companies will continue to highlight positive results in the scientific literature as it provides them with certification that their research findings are scientifically sound, methodologically rigourous and thus credible. Negative results, by contrast, are expected to be published on the web. This hypothesis is tested against a sample of clinical trials that assess the efficacy of glucose lowering agents in diabetes patients. The results indicate that firms continue to highlight positive results in scientific journals which results in an ongoing and persistent bias of evidence in the literature. Finally, Chapter 7 studies the production and detection of error in scientific publications on the basis of published errata and retractions. It is derived from earlier chapters that geographical proximity remains an important coordination device in research practice. This begs the question whether researchers operating in geographically dispersed research projects are also more likely to produce error because effective peer-control may be lacking and the establishment of mutual understanding hindered. The chapter addresses this question by making a conceptual distinction between modes of coordination that influence error production, and the prestige of research findings that influences error detection. With respect to prestige of research the chapter shows that editorial policies of scientific journals may actively steer the process of error detection by organising impact around particular findings and by enforcing strict publication guidelines. After controlling for these factors the analysis finds that geographically distributed research results in less accurate scientific publication. Globalisation tendencies thus put increasing responsibility on the publication system to correct errors in publications. Based on the findings of the empirical chapters, the overall conclusion of the dissertation is three-fold. The first conclusion holds that changes in the contemporary geography of research collaboration are mainly visible in institutional harmonisation across territories, rather than in a tendency towards a ‘death of distance’ per se. This paradoxical process provides new prospects for worldwide research collaborations, but limits at the same time the possibilities to make these prospects work in actual research practice. Second, the presented analysis indicates that in an age of globalisation, science does not become a global level playing field where chances of success level off. Rather, stratified structures are reproduced at different spatial scales via the creation of new reward systems and global research collaboration network that exhibit high entry barriers. Third, globalised science reveals new publication practices that concern authorship norms, the prevalence and correction of error in scientific publications and the conditions under which disclosure of research findings takes place. In this respect, new global contexts have often been cited as contributors to the quality, impact and practical application of research findings. The results presented here do not support the argument and at least point to some potential side-effects of geographically distributed research. These effects require a rethinking of science’s institutions in light of globalisation

ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity Mission - An overview on the mission’s performance and scientific results

European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2014 (EGU2014), 27 april - 2 may 2014, Vienna, Austria.-- 1 pageThe Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission, launched on 2 November 2009, is the European Space Agency’s (ESA) second Earth Explorer Opportunity mission. The scientific objectives of the SMOS mission directly respond to the need for global observations of soil moisture and ocean salinity, two key variables used in predictive hydrological, oceanographic and atmospheric models. SMOS observations also provide information on the characterisation of ice and snow covered surfaces and the sea ice effect on ocean-atmosphere heat fluxes and dynamics, which affects large-scale processes of the Earth’s climate system. This paper will provide an overview on the various aspects of the SMOS mission, such as 1. The performance of the mission after more than 5 years in orbit: The SMOS mission has been in routine operations since May 2010, following the successful completion of the 6-months commissioning phase. The paper will summarise the technical and scientific status of the mission, including the status of the RFI detection and mitigation and its effect on the data products. SMOS has so far provided very reliable instrument operations, data processing and dissemination to users. The paper will also provide an overview on the MIRAS instrument performance, including the instrument calibration and level 1 brightness temperature data processing. 2. An overview on the SMOS data products: SMOS provides continuously level 1 (brightness temperature) and level 2 (soil moisture and ocean salinity) to its scientific user community since summer 2010. SMOS also provides brightness temperature data (level 1 data) to ECMWF in near-real time (NRT), who assimilates the data into their forecasting system. New services have been established to deliver a tailored NRT data product via the WMO’s GTS and EUMETSAT’s EUMETCast data dissemination systems to other operational agencies. This will open up new operational applications for SMOS data. Other data products are under development, responding to the requirements of the science community in particular in the area of hydrology, climate, land use and ship routing, namely a frozen soil indicator, data products for freeze/thaw periods, sea ice thickness and vegetation water content. 3. Provide an update on the overall validation approach and recent activities: SMOS data products are continuously improved and approach the scientific mission objectives. Validation activities are essential to ensure high data quality. ESA in collaboration with national agencies and institutions maintains a frame for validation activities such as reference sites, ground based observations as well as campaigns. The paper will provide an update on recent activities, such as the activities at DOME-C. 4. Summarise the collaboration with other space-borne L-band sensors, such as NASA’s Aquarius and SMAP missionsPeer Reviewe

Investigating the interplay between fundamentals of national research systems: performance, investments and international collaborations

We discuss, at the macro-level of nations, the contribution of research funding and rate of international collaboration to research performance, with important implications for the science of science policy. In particular, we cross-correlate suitable measures of these quantities with a scientometric-based assessment of scientific success, studying both the average performance of nations and their temporal dynamics in the space defined by these variables during the last decade. We find significant differences among nations in terms of efficiency in turning (financial) input into bibliometrically measurable output, and we confirm that growth of international collaboration positively correlate with scientific success, with significant benefits brought by EU integration policies. Various geo-cultural clusters of nations naturally emerge from our analysis. We critically discuss the possible factors that potentially determine the observed patterns

Emerging Search Regimes: Measuring Co-evolutions among Research, Science, and Society

Scientometric data is used to investigate empirically the emergence of search regimes in Biotechnology, Genomics, and Nanotechnology. Complex regimes can emerge when three independent sources of variance interact. In our model, researchers can be considered as the nodes that carry the science system. Research is geographically situated with site-specific skills, tacit knowledge and infrastructures. Second, the emergent science level refers to the formal communication of codified knowledge published in journals. Third, the socio-economic dynamics indicate the ways in which knowledge production relates to society. Although Biotechnology, Genomics, and Nanotechnology can all be characterised by rapid growth and divergent dynamics, the regimes differ in terms of self-organization among these three sources of variance. The scope of opportunities for researchers to contribute within the constraints of the existing body of knowledge are different in each field. Furthermore, the relevance of the context of application contributes to the knowledge dynamics to various degrees

International Collaboration in Science and the Formation of a Core Group

International collaboration as measured by co-authorship relations on refereed papers grew linearly from 1990 to 2005 in terms of the number of papers, but exponentially in terms of the number of international addresses. This confirms Persson et al.'s (2004) hypothesis of an inflation in international collaboration. Patterns in international collaboration in science can be considered as network effects, since there is no political institution mediating relationships at that level except for the initiatives of the European Commission. During the period 2000-2005, the network of global collaborations appears to have reinforced the formation of a core group of fourteen most cooperative countries. This core group can be expected to use knowledge from the global network with great efficiency, since these countries have strong national systems. Countries at the periphery may be disadvantaged by the increased strength of the core

National and International Dimensions of the Triple Helix in Japan: University-Industry-Government versus International Co-Authorship Relations

International co-authorship relations and university-industry-government ("Triple Helix") relations have hitherto been studied separately. Using Japanese (ISI) publication data for the period 1981-2004, we were able to study both kinds of relations in a single design. In the Japanese file, 1,277,823 articles with at least one Japanese address were attributed to the three sectors, and we know additionally whether these papers were co-authored internationally. Using the mutual information in three and four dimensions, respectively, we show that the Japanese Triple-Helix system has continuously been eroded at the national level. However, since the middle of the 1990s, international co-authorship relations have contributed to a reduction of the uncertainty. In other words, the national publication system of Japan has developed a capacity to retain surplus value generated internationally. In a final section, we compare these results with an analysis based on similar data for Canada. A relative uncoupling of local university-industry relations because of international collaborations is indicated in both national systems