Socio-cultural Contexts in International Research Collaboration

• In Event: How Does Mobility Change Researchers, Research Groups And Scientific Communities? (II)

Abstract

This paper presents findings on international research collaboration from a National Science Foundation funded study with 83 faculty in science and engineering (S&E) who returned to India after study and work in the United States. These faculty members were brought up in the Indian socio-cultural context, but they were professionalized in the scientific culture of Western academia. When they returned to India to take a faculty position, they knew collaborators in the United States with desired skills including their advisors. Yet, returned Indian migrant faculty face significant challenges in establishing successful international research collaboration with their American peers. Interestingly, this is not the case with collaborators from Europe and other parts of the world with whom they had little connection before moving to India. Findings show some inequities that exist between scientists and engineers in the United States and India that pertain to resources and attitudes towards collaboration.

Authors

• Roli Varma

• Meghna Sabharwal