Navigating disruptions: The effects of the pandemic on scientific collaboration and research novelty in Hong Kong

IF 3.5 2区管理学 Q2 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS

Journal of Informetrics Pub Date : 2025-03-12 DOI:10.1016/j.joi.2025.101656

Rong Ni , Jue Wang

{"title":"Navigating disruptions: The effects of the pandemic on scientific collaboration and research novelty in Hong Kong","authors":"Rong Ni , Jue Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.joi.2025.101656","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Scientific collaboration and novelty are fundamental drivers of progress in knowledge advancement and innovation. However, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted traditional channels of scholarly communication, potentially influencing both short- and long-term scientific endeavors. Using data from 116,942 WoS publications from Hong Kong between 2017 and 2022, this study investigates the pandemic's impact on both scientific collaboration and research novelty. Our analysis reveals that the pandemic reduced the proportion of international collaborative papers and led to a contraction in the scale of international collaboration. On the other hand, domestic collaboration increased in both scope and scale. Additionally, while the pandemic negatively affected research novelty, international collaboration significantly mitigated this impact. However, no moderating effect of collaboration was observed on high-novelty research. This study underscores the importance of maintaining a collaborative scientific community and highlights the resilience and adaptability of academic communities when facing unprecedented challenges.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48662,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Informetrics","volume":"19 2","pages":"Article 101656"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Informetrics","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157725000203","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"COMPUTER SCIENCE, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Scientific collaboration and novelty are fundamental drivers of progress in knowledge advancement and innovation. However, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted traditional channels of scholarly communication, potentially influencing both short- and long-term scientific endeavors. Using data from 116,942 WoS publications from Hong Kong between 2017 and 2022, this study investigates the pandemic's impact on both scientific collaboration and research novelty. Our analysis reveals that the pandemic reduced the proportion of international collaborative papers and led to a contraction in the scale of international collaboration. On the other hand, domestic collaboration increased in both scope and scale. Additionally, while the pandemic negatively affected research novelty, international collaboration significantly mitigated this impact. However, no moderating effect of collaboration was observed on high-novelty research. This study underscores the importance of maintaining a collaborative scientific community and highlights the resilience and adaptability of academic communities when facing unprecedented challenges.

查看原文本刊更多论文

导航中断：大流行对香港科学合作和研究新颖性的影响

科学合作和新颖性是推动知识进步和创新的根本动力。然而，新冠肺炎大流行的出现扰乱了传统的学术交流渠道，可能会影响短期和长期的科学努力。本研究利用2017年至2022年香港116,942份WoS出版物的数据，调查了疫情对科学合作和研究新颖性的影响。我们的分析表明，大流行降低了国际合作论文的比例，导致国际合作规模的收缩。另一方面，国内合作在范围和规模上都有所增加。此外，虽然大流行对研究的新颖性产生了负面影响，但国际合作大大减轻了这种影响。然而，合作对高新颖性研究没有调节作用。这项研究强调了维持一个协作的科学社区的重要性，并强调了学术界在面临前所未有的挑战时的弹性和适应性。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Journal of Informetrics Social Sciences-Library and Information Sciences

CiteScore

6.40

自引率

16.20%

发文量

期刊介绍： Journal of Informetrics (JOI) publishes rigorous high-quality research on quantitative aspects of information science. The main focus of the journal is on topics in bibliometrics, scientometrics, webometrics, patentometrics, altmetrics and research evaluation. Contributions studying informetric problems using methods from other quantitative fields, such as mathematics, statistics, computer science, economics and econometrics, and network science, are especially encouraged. JOI publishes both theoretical and empirical work. In general, case studies, for instance a bibliometric analysis focusing on a specific research field or a specific country, are not considered suitable for publication in JOI, unless they contain innovative methodological elements.