The effects of international research collaboration on the policy impact of research: A causal inference drawing on the journal Lancet

Abstract

Research findings have been widely used as evidence for policy-making. The internationalisation of research activities has been increasing in recent decades, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous studies have revealed that international research collaboration can enhance the academic impact of research. However, the effects that international research collaboration exerts on the policy impact of research are still unknown. This study aims to examine the effects of international research collaboration on the policy impact of research (as measured by the number of citations in policy documents) using a causal inference approach. Research articles published by the journal Lancet between 2000 and 2019 were selected as the study sample ( n = 6098). The number of policy citations of each article was obtained from Overton, the largest database of policy citations. Propensity score matching analysis, which takes a causal inference approach, was used to examine the dataset. Four other matching methods and alternative datasets of different sizes were used to test the robustness of the results. The results of this study reveal that international research collaboration has significant and positive effects on the policy impact of research ( coefficient = 4.323, p < 0.001). This study can provide insight to researchers, research institutions and grant funders for improving the policy impact of research.