Mapping Researcher Mobility: Measuring research collaboration among APEC economies

Researcher mobility is an important form of cross-border education (CBE). It has the potential to generate significant benefits for economies as expert scholars and scientists come together to solve some of the most pressing challenges in the contemporary world. Among members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Community (APEC) researcher mobility can strengthen ties between economies and enable the minimisation of barriers to economic growth and sustainability. There are not currently any comparable or rigorous data available on researcher mobility among APEC economies. Proxy measures are needed to gain a sense of the extent to which researchers in APEC economies are collaborating with their peers. In this report, research collaboration, measured through data on joint publications, is analysed to identify patterns of collaboration among researchers in APEC economies. Although this approach does not encapsulate the outcomes of all forms of researcher mobility it provides an illustration of the strength of patterns of research collaboration within, and among, the 21 economies that comprise APEC.