Does the mobility of scientists disrupt their collaboration stability?

Abstract

To explore to what extent the mobility of scientists disrupts the stability of their research collaboration, we designed a measure − Collaboration Stability After Moving ( CSAM) − for scientists, retrieved 4343 US-related scientists’ curricula vitae (CVs) from the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) website and publication records in the Web of Science database and applied a linear regression model to the dataset. Our findings include the following: (1) the more times a scientist moved, the more she or he is inclined to co-author with previous collaborators, (2) cross-country mobility disrupts the stability of research collaboration more than domestic mobility and (3) the stability of research collaboration correlates with scientists’ cultural background, cross-country work experience and research areas.