Can emerging economies take advantage of their population size to gain international academic recognition? Evidence from key universities in China

• Published in: Scientometrics 2022-02, Vol.127 (2), p.927-957
• Main Authors: Cao, Qinwei, Tan, Manqing, Xie, Peng, Huang, Jian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Computer Science; Cooperation; Economic development; Human resources; Information Storage and Retrieval; International cooperation; Library Science; Personnel; Policies; Population number; Recognition; Social networks; Social organization; Visibility
• ISSN: 0138-9130; 1588-2861
• DOI: 10.1007/s11192-021-04218-0

Is there a demographic dividend in scientific research akin to economic development? Can an increasing number of researchers gain recognition in the international academic community? By integrating social network theory and social identity theory, we propose three constructs, namely academic participation, government support and international reputation, to analyze the relationship between S&T human scale and international academic recognition. Based on the panel data of universities directly under the Ministry of Education in China, we use the natural logarithm of the ratio between the number of scholars sent by universities and the number actually received by foreign universities to measure the international academic recognition. The results showed that: (1) Currently, Chinese universities cannot gain recognition from the international academic community by virtue of the size advantage of their S&T personnel. (2) The key to gaining international academic recognition is to encourage R&D personnel to actively participate in international academic activities and produce high-quality research results, while S&T service personnel mainly play a supporting role. (3) The government needs to formulate more precise support policies for international cooperation as well as guide researchers and S&T service personnel to play their roles in different categories, which may enhance the international recognition of Chinese scholars. (4) Chinese scholars should actively cooperate with internationally renowned scholars to produce high-level research results, and thus improve the international visibility of Chinese scholars. This can not only largely weaken the negative relationship between S&T human scale and international academic recognition, but also conduce to realizing the scale advantage of Chinese S&T personnel. Our conclusions further expand the boundary of legitimacy in institutional theory, and clarify the potential inapplicability of scale advantage in scientific research, which can provide an important reference for policy makers and university administrators to improve human resource policies.