Dynamic academic networking concept and its links with English language skills and research productivity–non-Anglophone context

Abstract

Although the Science of Team Science or SciTS has already provided substantial evidence for research collaboration positive links to scientific productivity, much less is known about such links with broadly defined academic networking, especially with regard to the dilemma about forms of academic networking that may help individual scholars in handling risks and dynamics inherent in academic connections. This study uses cross-disciplinary theoretical insights to conceptualize “dynamic academic networking” as a distinct collaboration-related phenomenon that is theoretically linked with research productivity on the one hand, and with English language skills on the other, especially in the context of non-Anglophone academic systems. The study combines survey-based data and Scopus-based data to test two main hypothesized connections while controlling for the potential effects of other factors, e.g. home faculty research connections and faculty-industry professional connections. The research results provide support for the structural model which is also interpreted in terms of dynamic networking being valid concept in relation to further development of SciTS.