Knowledge networks among Australian biological scientists

Transcription

1 1 TASA Conference 2008, submission refereed papers section Knowledge networks among Australian biological scientists Richard Woolley Centre for Industry & Innovation Studies (CINIS), University of Western Sydney Locked Bag 1797 Penrith South DC NSW 1797 Tel: Tim Turpin Centre for Industry & Innovation Studies (CINIS), University of Western Sydney Locked Bag 1797 Penrith South DC NSW 1797 Tel: Microsoft Word 2003 (version )

2 2 Knowledge networks among Australia biological scientists Richard Woolley, Tim Turpin Centre for Industry & Innovation Studies (CINIS), University of Western Sydney Scientific and technical human capital (STHC) is central to economic development in knowledge societies. Traditional models have viewed human capital as a private good. This has given rise to zero-sum understandings of the mobility of highly skilled human capital such as research scientists. Public policies to attract and retain STHC are designed to enable a region or a country to compete for knowledge workers and avoid the brain drain phenomena. However, recent theoretical and empirical studies have emphasized an alternative approach focused on a network model of human capital distribution. These approaches look at connections between scientists, seeking evidence for the transnational organization of knowledge production through distributed or diaspora knowledge networks (DKNs). This approach poses an alternative to the zero-sum approach to scientific human capital, by positing real knowledge flows and economic benefits that can spillover into different countries and regions. This paper uses evidence regarding a small number of Australian biologists working overseas to test the idea that transnational collaboration can result in real knowledge benefits flowing back to the sending country. The paper uses survey and bibliometric data to search for evidence of such knowledge flows through networks and research collaboration. The data shows that amongst this group of biological scientists there is evidence of transnational networks involving Australian scientists overseas and professional colleagues working in Australia. There is also empirical evidence that these networks are producing scientific knowledge in the form of co-authored scientific papers.

3 1 Distributed knowledge networks of Australian biologists Introduction A highly skilled science and technology workforce is regarded as an essential element of national innovation policies and programs oriented toward economic growth and social development (David & Foray, 2002; OECD, 2002), particularly for knowledge-based innovation strategies (Johnson & Regets, 1998; Kleinman & Vallas, 2001; Powell & Snellman, 2004). Principally by way of investments in their education and training, scientific and technical human capital (STHC) (Bozeman et al., 2001) are viewed as possessing the necessary human capital (Becker, 1964) to use codified scientific knowledge and as embodying the tacit knowledge and experimental skills required for conducting fundamental research. Traditionally the only ways to ensure sufficient human capital resources have been through education or migration. Early economic analyses of movements of skilled human capital mobility viewed this as a zerosum game (Bhagwati, 1979; Bhagwati & Hamada, 1976). Developing counties were considered to have their human capital resources depleted by the flows of talented and skilled individuals to the developed world, particularly the United States (US House of Representatives, 1979). This has led global institutions to focus on questions of net brain gains and brain drains in relation to development and fairness (Dickson, 2003; Docquier & Rapoport, 2005; InterAcademy Council, 2004; OECD, 2002). It has also been argued that the brain drain can have positive impacts on the circumstances of developing countries (Gaillard & Gaillard 1997), including creating aspirations for education (Rapaport 2002) and technology transfer through the return of scientists (Ozden & Schiff, 2005). However, many countries have developed specific policies to try and attract and retain scientific researchers or talents (Laudel 2005; Zweig 2006). Competition has been argued to have intensified with new flows of talented researchers, particularly toward Asia as R&D investment rises in the region (Dente 2007; Goldbrunner et al., 2006; Zweig 2006). As Favell et al. (2007) have described, the global context is thus characterised by the frequent back and forth movement of migrants, ideas, knowledge, information, and skill sets that is now a

4 2 routine part of contemporary transnationalism. Mahroum (2000) has argued that the international mobility of scientists is both a driver and a consequence of processes of the increasingly global forms of organization of knowledge production and distribution. Thinking about transnational mobility in this context has been argued to require a network ontology that focuses on the circulation of innovative personnel and knowledge, rather than a scalar approach tied to fixed work sites or geographic locations (Coe & Bunnell, 2003: 454). Research into transnational scientific networks has emerged, highlighting linkages between scientists working in developed countries and their compatriots in developing ones. These studies argue that these inter-connections can potentially contribute to solving human resource and economic growth issues confronting both poorer and richer countries (Barré et al., 2003; Meyer, 2001; Meyer & Wattiaux, 2006; Mahroum & De Guchteneire, 2006). As Meyer and Wattiaux have put it, the conceptual definition and growing empirical analyses of diaspora or distributed knowledge networks (DKNs) have to some extent subverted the traditional brain drain migration outflow into a brain gain skills circulation by converting the loss of human resources into a remote although accessible asset of expanded networks (Meyer & Wattiaux 2006: 5). Empirical studies have found evidence of the functioning of DKNs linked back to the Americas (Meyer et al. 2001) and Africa (Meyer et al. 1999). In the Asia-Pacific, Biao (2007) found that national diaspora networks in the IT sectors of India and China produced different local outcomes (socio-economic development and basic research, respectively) depending on whether they were predominantly framed by multinational market actors (India) or institutional policies (China). A key observation is that networks of scientific and technological personnel may create positive externalities that boost the innovative capacity by providing readily accessible new knowledge, ideas, technologies and skills. Methodology for identifying transnational diaspora networks Research into diaspora knowledge networks has used an electronic and website-based communications methodology (Meyer & Brown 1999; Meyer & Wattiaux 2006). In this paper we use two data sources, a survey and bibliometric data to seek evidence of distributed knowledge networks involving Australian biologists based overseas and collaborators based in Australia. The

5 3 principal methodological problem that confronts researchers in such analyses is identifying nationals who are working outside the home or sending country. Whilst it is relatively straight forward to locate publishing scientists working in Australian institutions through database searches, Australian researchers working abroad cannot be identified in the same way. Australia does not take the kind of national registry approach to tracking its scientists as is used systematically in Scandinavian countries. Alternative approaches to tracking overseas researchers, such as voluntary registration through an online portal is currently underway in countries such as Portugal and Spain. In this paper, we initially use survey data to identify Australian scientists working abroad and to report on the locations of research networks and collaborators they nominate. We then take a small sample (n=27) of survey respondents from one scientific discipline, biological sciences, and look for bibliometric evidence of collaborative knowledge production between these overseas Australians and Australian-based colleagues. There was no institutional or historical rationale underlying the choice of biological scientists for this analysis. Rather, the results contained in this paper can be seen as a methodological pilot for further analyses of other disciplinary groups within our survey database. The authors have been studying the mobility of scientists from the Asia-Pacifc region in relation to the building of distributed knowledge networks (DKNs), particularly the role of destinations for undertaking research training (PhD) and postdoctoral research (P-doc) in building research networks and collaboration. In a major data collection of the project, an exploratory online survey was conducted with authors drawn from the Science Citation Index (SCI) who were working in 22 countries across the Asia-Pacific. Using the address field contained in the SCI, invitations were sent to approximately 50,000 publishing scientists in the region, in proportions based on the contributions of each of these 22 countries to the total number of papers in the SCI for It was not possible to ascertain the proportion of these s that were read, blocked, or otherwise not delivered. A total of 10,300 responses were received. In one of the main sections of the survey participants were asked a series of questions about their networks and the research collaborations in which they were involved. These included: the major locations of participants research networks; the countries in which they had spent most time

6 4 working as science researchers; and the location of collaborators on the most important example of transnational knowledge production in which they had participated. The survey instrument allowed for respondents, who were otherwise anonymous, to offer their names to enable their participation in further aspects of the research. A very high proportion of respondents responded favorably to this request (82%), allowing us to compile bibliometric and other data to complement participants survey records. The largest national sub-groups among the survey respondents were from India (n=1637), PR China (n=1620), Japan (n=1290), Australia (n=1010) and Korea (n=727). Of the Australian respondents 91.1% (n=920) held a postgraduate research degree (mainly Doctorates, although the structure of postgraduate training in medicine is sometimes different). A total of 149 Australian respondents (14.9%) were working overseas. Amongst these, 89.3% were holders of postgraduate research degrees including 96.9% being holders of PhD qualifications. The overseas Australian respondents were thus a very highly qualified group. A total of 20.3% of the overseas Australian respondents were female, with a majority of both genders being aged 44 years or younger (Table 1). Table 1. Age and gender of overseas-based Australian respondents Age group Male Female Total Less than 35 years or older Total A large majority of the overseas Australians were working in universities (74.3%), with the next largest groups working in government (12.2%) and private non-profit organizations (4.4%). In terms of disciplinary fields the largest groups were biological sciences (20.6%), basic medical and health sciences, and clinical medicine (16.8%), mathematics and computing (14.5%) and physical sciences (13.7%). The overseas-based Australian respondents were working in 33 different countries. The largest proportions were in the United States (22.1%), the United Kingdom (20.1%), New Zealand

7 5 (12.1%), Singapore (8.1%) and Japan (5.4%). On a regional basis the overseas Australians were dispersed across the Asia-Pacific (39.2%), Europe (33.6%) and North America (25.5%). The networks of overseas-based Australian biological scientists This section compares the Australian connections of biological scientists (n=27) with those of the overseas Australian respondents overall. Only three of the biologists were female (11.1%), whilst 63.0% were aged 44 years or younger. A total of 63.0% were working universities overseas, whilst 22.2% were in government organizations. The largest number of biologists were working in New Zealand (n=8), followed by the USA (n=6), the UK (n=3) and Sweden (n=2). The remaining biologists were working in Asia-Pacific (n=4), Northern Europe (n=2), Eastern Europe (n=2) and Central America (n=1). 1 Survey respondents were asked to nominate the primary and secondary locations of their scientific research networks. The proportions of Australian network connections nominated by overseas-based biologists and by the overseas-based Australian respondents overall are shown in Table 2. Table 2. Australian networks of overseas-based Australian survey respondents (%) Overseas-based Australian biologists Overseas based Australian respondents total Networks in Australia Primary location Second location Total 50.0% 7.7% Half of the overseas-based biologists nominated Australia as the primary location of nodes their international research networks. A further small proportion nominated Australia as the second most signifcant location of these networks. In comparison, the overseas-based Australian 1 Countries where one biologist is working are not identified as some of these countries are relatively small and identifying the individual scientist could be possible.

8 6 respondents as a whole were less likely to nominate Australia as the primary location of their networks. However, overall the proportions with networks linking back to Australia were similar between biologists and the overseas group as a whole. Survey respondents were also asked to nominate the main location of researchers with whom they had collaborated on their most important transnational research collaboration activity, if they had one. They were also asked to nominate what types of knowledge outputs had been generated by the collaboration, as a way of ensuring that this was a knowledge-producing collaboration. A total of 22.2% of the overseas-based biologists said their most important research collaboration was with Australian-based partners. A similar proportion of Australian-based collaborators (20.4%) was reported by overseas-based Australians as a whole. Table 3 shows the types of outputs reported as emerging from these transnational collaborations. Table 3. Outputs from transnational research collaborations, overseas based Australian survey respondents (%) Type of research output Biologists All Co-authored refereed journal 92.6% 88.6% article(s) Patents New or improved industrial product(s) or process(es) Conference presentation(s) Research proposals or grant applications Other IP Reports and/or policy recommendations Other Similar types of research outputs can be observed in Table 3 in comparing these two groups. What is evident is that very high proportions of the transnational collaborations that produce scientific codified knowledge in the form of journal articles. Also evident are high levels of

9 7 generation of conference papers and further research proposals in the process of these transnational collaborations. In summary, on the basis of these survey data there appears to be considerable empirical evidence of existing scientific networks and transnational knowledge flows that incorporate Australian researchers based both onshore and overseas. Similar level of connectedness and collaborative knowledge production were found amongst Australian biologists based overseas and all the expatriate Australian scientists who responded to the survey. In the following section we seek to validate the evidence from the survey by looking as the patterns of co-authorship for the subgroups of overseas-based Australian biologists, to see if evidence exists of co-publishing activity with colleagues based in Australian institutions. Co-authorships of overseas-based Australian biologists All the overseas-based Australian biological scientists who participated in the survey submitted their name with their survey record, with one exception. This left a total of 26 publications histories to search in the SCI. Two searches did not succeed in identifying the appropriate author, based on the name and current work location of the survey participant. The other 24 searches were successful. A total of 264 journal articles were identified as including both one of the overseas-based Australian biologists and at least one Australian-based co-author. This equated to an average of eleven papers with Australian collaborators produced by each of the 24 overseasbased biologists. This average was boosted by two relatively prolific overseas-based authors who had produced 50 and 43 papers with Australian-based authors. A better indicator of the rate of authorship collaboration was the median case of five co-authored papers. Along with counting the numbers of papers, a simple count was done of the number of different Australian institutions where co-authors were based, for each overseas author. This produced an average of 2.9 different Australian institutions where co-authors were located for each of the 24 overseas biologists. Although it was not possible in the context of this short paper to count the total number of collaborating institutions globally for each of the 24 biologists, a count was done of the number of different countries in which these authors had collaborating co-authors. This

10 8 count produced an average of 6.2 countries for each of the 24 authors. This suggests that networks including Australian biologists based both onshore and offshore are not likely to be exclusively organized around diaspora connections. Rather these networks appear to have nodes in multiple locations that would suggest more complicated distributed networks. In summary, there is evidence from this small sample that Australian biological scientists based overseas do collaborate in knowledge production activities with colleagues based in Australia. Obviously this is a convenience sample, based on participation in a prior survey. These data are not representative of Australian scientists co-authorship behaviour, or even of the co-authorship activities of overseas-based Australian biological scientists. What these data represent is merely some empirical evidence of the existence of knowledge networks and of knowledge producing collaborations between Australian biologists based in overseas institutions and colleagues based in Australia. Discussion The biological sciences and the biotechnology are viewed as particularly important fields for knowledge-based capitalism. There is evidence at the level of Australian biotechnology firms of international linkages, particularly in the interest of gaining access to venture capital and strategic R&D collaboration, in trying to take the results of basic research produced in Australia to the marketplace (Gilding 2008). At the level of scientific and technical human capital, the biosciences are one of the key areas of investment in education, training and recruitment. Human capital theory would view the mobility of researchers to overseas locations as a loss, or knowledge drain. However, recent network approaches to scientific networks would suggest that this view is not an adequate explanation of contemporary forms of organising scientific knowledge production and circulation. The production of scientific knowledge has adopted globalised and distributed forms of organisation. The importance of spatially distributed knowledge networks of scientific researchers lies in their potential for knowledge spillovers and the leveraging of ideas, techniques and problem-solving capabilities.

11 9 The empirical evidence presented in this paper suggests that such processes are occurring in distributed networks involving Australian biological scientists based at home and abroad. This evidence would suggest that national or regional concerns about losses and gains of scientific human capital should be viewed also in the light of the potential benefits flowing through networks of scientific researchers. It may well be that the mobility of Australian researchers to overseas institutions has a network building effect. The presence of Australian researchers overseas appears, at least in the biosciences, to elaborate collaborative connections that are likely to be also beneficial to the original sending country. References Barré, R., Hernandez, V., Meyer, J-B. & Vinck, D. (eds) (2003) Scientific Diasporas, Paris, IRD Editions. Becker, G. (1964) Human Capital. A theoretical and empirical analysis, with special reference to education. National Bureau of Economic Research. New York. Bhagwati, Jagdish N. (1979) International Migration of the Highly Skilled: Economics, Ethics and Taxes, Third World Quarterly, 1: Bhagwati, J.N. & Hamada, K. (1976) The Brain Drain, International Integration of Markets for Professionals and Unemployment: A Theoretical Analysis, Journal of Development Economics, 1(1): Biao, X. (2005) Promoting Knowledge Exchange through Diaspora Networks (The Case of People s Republic of China), report written for the Asian Development Bank, COMPAS, University of Oxford, Oxford.

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