Does experiencing international research collaboration permanently affect the impact of scientific production? Evidence from Africa

This paper examines the effect of experiencing a research collaboration between African scientists and their international partners on the African scientists’ research impact, measured by scores based on the number of citations and journal impact factor. Using a difference-in-difference regression analysis on publication data of African scientists, the results show that international research collaboration in a given year has a positive and significant effect on research impact, which lasts in the subsequent years. The presence of such permanent effect suggests a sort of ‘permanent learning by international collaboration’. The positive effect of international collaboration on research impact, however, does not necessarily imply that the scientists with only local research collaboration are lesser scientists.