Factors Influencing Scientific Collaboration: Viewpoints of Iranian Science Diplomacy Researchers

The aim of the study is to identify the most important factors affecting international scientific collaborations based on the views of Iranian experts of science and technology diplomacy.

The instrument used for this survey was a questionnaire designed based on the related research literature. After reviewing and confirmation of validity and reliability, the questionnaire was designed in the online environment and sent via email to experts in the field.

The results of exploratory factor analysis in this study revealed four categories including international collaborations, internationalization of higher education, infrastructural and structural factors. International collaborations consist increasing utilization of study opportunities inside and outside the country, student-professor exchanges, recruitment of academics, and scholarships. Internationalization of education included strengthening distanced and online education, offering courses in international scientific languages in universities, holding foreign language courses. Infrastructural factors such were identified as scientific agreements and memoranda, empowering national scientific associations, expanding non-profit organizations, promoting the status of international deputy chancellors in universities, holding international conferences and forums; and structural factors included enhancing science and technology diplomacy, approving transparent patent and exploration laws, and intellectual property rights”. The results showed that the four categories have significant roles in the development of international scientific cooperation. International interactions with 0.88, infrastructure factors with 0.784, internationalization of education with 0.739, and structural factors with 0.566, respectively, were found to have the greatest impact on international scientific cooperation.

Factors identified could have significant impact on international scientific collaboration. In addition, the results of Friedman statistical test showed that student-professor exchanges are considered the most important factors. Provision of opportunities and empowering scientific associations and their relationship with international associations and federations are the second and third most important categories in the views of Iranian science diplomacy experts. Analysis of findings showed that the variable ranking of scientific collaborations is significant for experts in the field of diplomacy, and they rank such indicators differently. Also, we found significant relationship between the degree, work experience and age in ranking the categories of infrastructure and internationalization of education, but not for others. International collaboration requires an integrated strategy that takes into account various approaches, goals and duties of all stakeholders in the field of Science and Technology Diplomacy. We suggest that one organization should be responsible for implementing that strategy to identify competitive advantage in different scientific fields to pursue international collaborations