“ Internationalists ” and “ Locals ” in Research : Similar Productivity Patterns Across Europe

alization becomes integral to strengthening existing missions, it becomes much more sustainable. There is not enough new money available at almost any institution to fund internationalization completely on its own. There are many examples of institutions successfully funding internationalization by dual purposing existing programs and expenditures to include an international dimension: for example, expanding existing faculty domestic expertise and research priorities to include cross-border work and partnerships; taking existing courses and curricula; and integrating international content and dimensions.

alization becomes integral to strengthening existing missions, it becomes much more sustainable.There is not enough new money available at almost any institution to fund internationalization completely on its own.There are many examples of institutions successfully funding internationalization by dual purposing existing programs and expenditures to include an international dimension: for example, expanding existing faculty domestic expertise and research priorities to include cross-border work and partnerships; taking existing courses and curricula; and integrating international content and dimensions.

Challenge the Status Quo and Encourage Adaptive Bureaucracy.
Strategic and comprehensive internationalization is almost certain to require organizational change.Yet, in most organizations the status quo and comfort of the familiar is a powerful narcotic inhibiting change.However, internationalization forces change in curricula, research foci, and inclinations toward forging partnerships abroad.Partnerships with institutions in other countries and cultures will require adaptability and a willingness to recognize that "our way" is not the only way of doing things; administrative policies and procedures will change.A key enabler of change is building an institutional openness to examining policies, procedures, and rules that were designed for a different age and primarily for domestic stakeholders.

Recruit and Develop Human Resources for Internationalization.
Internationalization is driven and delivered by faculty, staff, and students, who at a minimum are interested in and see the importance of international engagement.An important enabling condition therefore is whether the institution has and seeks to attract such individuals.Is there an institutional commitment to international engagement in its branding, in its messages to prospective students, and when advertising faculty vacancies?Furthermore, what commitment is the institution willing to make to further educate and develop its existing faculty and staff for international activity?

In Sum
Institutions will vary substantially in the exact ways they approach more comprehensive and strategic internationalization.There is no best model per se; rather, there are several valid models.The "best" model for an institution is the one that fits its particular culture, capabilities, core values, and missions.Practice must be fashioned from within, but giving attention to the leadership and policy factors above in institutionally relevant terms helps to build success.T he relationships between international cooperation and research productivity have been widely discussed in research literature, and there is a general assumption that international collaborative activities in research lead to an increase in research productivity.International research collaboration is most often found to be a critical factor in predicting high research productivity.
A recent study investigated how strongly international collaboration in research is correlated with higher than average research productivity and whether the relationships found hold across all academic disciplines.Analysis was conducted with reference to two separate groups of academics, termed internationalists and locals.We define "internationalists" as academics indicating their involvement in international research collaboration and "locals" as academics indicating their lack of involvement in it.We used the data created by the global CAP and the European EU-ROAC projects on the academic profession-"The Changing Academic Profession" and "The Academic Profession in Europe: Responses to Societal Challenges," respectively.The primary data come from 11 European countries, with 17,211 usable cases.

Internationalization Productivity, and Academic Fields
Our research demonstrates that across all major clusters of academic fields, the difference in productivity rates between European "internationalists" and "locals" is statistically significant.Those European academics who were collaborating with international colleagues in research had published, on average, substantially more articles in academic books or journals, than their colleagues in the same academic field who were not recently collaborating internationally.
The percentage of academics collaborating internationally in research across Europe is high and it is an activity reported, on average, by two thirds of academics.There are huge cross-disciplinary and cross-national differences, though.The share of "internationalists" varies significantly Number 83: Special Issue 2015 across the five major clusters of academic fields that we studied: life sciences and medical sciences, physical sciences and mathematics, engineering, the humanities and social sciences, and the professions (teacher training and education science, and administration, economics, and law).Academics in the cluster of physical sciences and mathematics are by far the most internationalized (three quarters of them are collaborating internationally) and academics in the cluster of the professions are the least internationalized (only about half are collaborating internationally).
"Internationalists" across eleven European countries across all academic fields had published, on average, about twice as many articles as "locals."In some academic fields, "internationalists" produced, on average, about 140 percent more articles (the engineering cluster) or about 120 percent more (the physical sciences and mathematics cluster), while in others (the humanities and social sciences, and the professions) they produced about 70 percent more articles in a three-year reference period (2005)(2006)(2007) for CAP and 2008-2010 for EUROAC countries)."Internationalists" in life sciences and medical sciences-the academic fields with the highest productivity rate-produced, on average, 8.80 articles, which was about 80 percent more than "locals," who produced 4.91 articles, on average.The academic field with the highest productivity rate differential between "internationalists" and "locals" in Europe is engineering, with average productivity rates of 6.97 articles for the former group and 2.91 articles for the latter.
In all 11 European countries studied, international collaboration in research is correlated with a substantially higher number of publications.Only for the Netherlands, the most highly internationalized system in Europe, are the results not statistically significant.If we assume that the mean number of publications of "locals" is 100 percent, then the field mean for "internationals" varies from about 240 to more than 400 percent.International collaboration pays off most in terms of knowledge production in engineering (on average, academics collaborating internationally produce four times more publications), and the least for the humanities and social sciences and the professions (producing about two and a half times more publications).
Cross-national differences apply: leaders in internationalization are the relatively small systems of Ireland and the Netherlands (with more than four in every five academics collaborating internationally, on average), followed by Austria, Switzerland, and Finland (with three out of four academics collaborating internationally).The two least internationalized systems are the relatively large systems of Poland and Germany, with slightly less than half of all academics collaborating internationally (about 48 percent).The remaining countries can be termed internationalization moderates.

Caveats
There are two reservations: one regarding the direction of causality in the research productivity-international cooperation relation and one regarding publication numbers.The identification of high research productivity correlates (e.g., international collaboration) does not necessarily imply the identification of causal relations.International cooperation in research may be generally undertaken by more productive academics, as such academics are sought by the most productive academics across all systems.Also, more productive academics tend to have better access to funding for international cooperation.There is also an important difference to be made between publication numbers and their scientific significance.Numbers do not necessarily determine scientific value, but it is often assumed in the studies on social stratification in science that a higher number of publications tends to lead to more consequential research than a lower number.

Conclusions
Research productivity of European academics is highly correlated with international research collaboration: the average research productivity rate of European academics involved in international collaboration ("internationalists") is consistently higher than the rate of European academics not involved in international collaboration ("locals") in all clusters of academic fields and in all 11 countries studied.
The distinction between "internationalists" and "locals" permeates European research.Some systems, institutions, and academics are consistently more internationalized in research than others.For "internationalists," the international academic community is a reference group, while "locals" publish predominantly for the national academic community.
Internationalization increasingly plays a stratifying role in academia, though-more international collaboration tends to correlate with higher publishing rates, and those who do not collaborate internationally may be losing more than ever before in terms of resources and prestige.
Number 83: Special Issue 2015 "Internationalists" across eleven European countries across all academic fields had published, on average, about twice as many articles as "locals." Competition is becoming a permanent feature of the European research landscape, and local prestige, combined with local publications, may no longer suffice in the race for resources (both national and international) and wider academic recognition.Huge cross-disciplinary and crossnational differences apply, but, in general, the role of internationalization of research in European universities is greatly increasing.
A collaborative approach to internationalization through international partnerships is widely practiced and considered essential for higher education.However, the theoretical underpinnings of university partnerships have yet to be fully analysed and understood.The Nelson Mandela Bay Declaration on the Future of Internationalization (2014) proclaims that the future agenda for internationalization should concentrate on "gaining commitment on a global basis to equal and ethical higher education partnerships."

Equality in Partnerships
While equality is commonly cited as a core principle underlying higher education partnerships, the doctrine is not yet clearly defined and the academic discourse on developing suitable concepts and strategies to achieve it is in its infancy.Inequalities are inherent to many higher education partnerships, and especially to those between universities of unequal strength.Inequalities are especially apparent when finance is provided by external donors, who may often be located in the context of the "stronger" university and who award funding exclusively to this partner because they share the same context.

Formal Equality
Generally, recourse is made to a formal conception of equality in higher education partnerships, based on that aspect of Aristotelian understanding of equality which espouses that "things that are alike should be treated alike."This works well and achieves equitable results in instances where equality is to be accomplished between entities that are similar in their core characteristics, but has limitations with regard to realizing equality between entities with dissimilar features.
In higher education partnerships in which one partner makes a larger financial contribution than the other, pursuant to its superior economic strength, the stronger partner's influence on partnership decision-making processes is likely to be weightier.This dynamic is at times used by universities to secure a competitive advantage, especially when the partners are universities that vary greatly in size, shape, research output, reputation, and economic strength.The absence of formal equality poses a threat to the success and sustainability of partnerships and can result in the dominance of one partner to the relationship over the other.The prevalent influence of the dominant, economically stronger partner on the decision-making processes in a partnership is often justified by reference to larger financial contributions.

Substantive Equality
A consensus exists that higher education partnerships should be equal or at least equitable, but it remains to be determined how this can be achieved in a global landscape characterized by unequal resources and divergent strengths of universities and higher education systems.As demonstrated above, formal equality is problematic as a conceptual basis for equality in higher education partnerships.It is necessary to interrogate whether equality should not be defined differently, for example by using an understanding that emphasizes the second element of the Aristotelian conception of equality-namely that "things that are unalike should be treated unalike in proportion to their unalikeness."A substantive conception of equality based on this While equality is commonly cited as a core principle underlying higher education partnerships, the doctrine is not yet clearly defined and the academic discourse on developing suitable concepts and strategies to achieve it is in its infancy.