International research collaboration – advantages and requirements

Research suggests international collaboration and atypical knowledge recombination tend to produce higher impact research. European Union support for research and innovation adds value by encouraging cooperation between research teams across countries and disciplines that is vital in making breakthrough discoveries. Evaluation criteria for the submitted applications are always the added value for European level. In addition, NordForsk facilitates and provides funding for Nordic research cooperation and research infrastructure. The consortium must include partner institutions from research-performing organisations from at least three Nordic countries. A quick look at the articles in this issue indicates the lack of international research collaboration. Only one article, Perceptions on nurse-nurse collaboration among registered nurses in Finland and Norway, reports study results in which the data have been collected in two countries. There is a lack of publications regarding experiences of the international research collaboration, which would be helpful especially for the starting researchers. The results of the Chen et al. 1 study show that the international research collaboration (IRC) research has gone through three phases, namely, ‘emergence’ (1957–1991), ‘fermentation’ (1992–2005) and ‘take-off’ (2006–2015) phases. Using data from Web of Science and Scopus, Wagner et al. 2 failed to show that international collaboration produces more novel articles. Actually, they stated that international collaboration appears to produce less novel and more conventional knowledge combinations. Transaction costs and communication barriers to international collaboration may suppress novelty. Higher citations to international work may be explained by an audience effect, where more authors from more countries results in greater access to a larger citing community. We can consider what is needed to be able to have international research collaboration. The collaboration needs to be true and long-lasting and not only for the application purposes. This will improve the quality of the research plans and applications. There should be a new and modern idea between the partners, looking towards the future. It is essential to understand each other and different ways of thinking and how to put them to work together. The clear definition of the division of the workload and true commitment for the application is needed. There are also many practical issues to be solved, for example how to communicate during the work. New ways, such as Skype or sharing documents, are helpful, but they cannot always substitute the face-to-face meetings and dialogue between the partners. The work attitudes differ from country to country, and for example how important it is to keep the promised deadlines varies. Although, we have listed some requirements for the successful international collaboration, what would be more fulfilling than an approved international funding or even an international article authorship. It will enhance the partners’ knowledge and expand the international network. Thus, we, as the editors, invite you all to think about your possibilities and submit a manuscript that you have co-authored with you colleagues from other countries.