An analysis of national collaboration with Spanish researchers abroad in the health sciences

A study was performed among Spanish scientists based abroad through an online questionnaire
between January and March 2014. This study belonged to an authorized and joint project
between the Dirección General de Migraciones del Ministerio de Empleo y Seguridad
Social de España and the Universidad a Distancia de Madrid.

Participants and scope

As discussed above, public financial support of national plans has been uniform within
all areas of knowledge in mobility and networking. Therefore, it may be relevant to
compare different areas of knowledge to determine possible differences in good practices
developed for these specific areas.

Likewise, according to the concept of collaboration used in this study, the participants’
data in this study have been collected by associations of Spanish researchers abroad
(SRUK/CERU, CERFA, ACES and ECUSA) since these associations are interested in scientific
collaboration with Spain, as discussed above. Each association has its own checklist
consisting of members and other Spanish researchers worldwide related to the association.
The associations’ total population comprises 2,060 Spanish researchers abroad 34], of which 268 scientists (13%) responded our questionnaire.

From January 13th to March 15th, 2014, these associations contributed to circulating
the questionnaire by email to Spanish researchers abroad. Approximately every 14 days,
study researchers consulted the associations with regards to the number of answers
obtained. With this information, these associations kept on sending this questionnaire
by email. Additionally, the associations used their Facebook and social networks (SRUK/CERU,
CERFA and ECUSA) to obtain a higher response rate 35]. At the beginning of March, the latest email and calls to social networks were sent.
Since then, responses scarcely increased. The questionnaire closed on March 15th,
2014. All participants provided informed consent, as embedded in the questionnaire,
to participate in the study and the authors of this study did not interact with the
participants in any way. Completion of the questionnaire was voluntary and anonymous.

Questionnaire

To collect data, a questionnaire was designed following Fontes’ approach 15]. Fontes analysed the return of 55 biotechnology researchers to Portugal. Similar
to Spain, Portugal has highly-skilled scientific personnel, but lacks both a very
strong national RD system and consistent data about scientific mobility flow. On
the basis of the above, four variables were studied. These items were evaluated using
a 7-point Likert scale, where higher values signify a greater degree of collaboration
and lower values signify a lower degree.

Level of national and international scientific collaboration

This variable is composed of three items to estimate the level of national and international
scientific collaboration: (1) the extent of collaboration with some international
institution, (2) the extent of collaboration with some Spanish scientific institution,
(3) the extent of collaboration with the Spanish scientific institution of origin.

Efforts made by the host country to achieve collaboration

Again, this variable is composed of three items to estimate its degree of fostering
collaborations with (1) other international institutions, (2) Spanish scientific institutions,
(3) the Spanish scientific institution of origin.

Efforts made by national scientific institutions to promote collaboration

This variable is composed of only one item to assess the degree of promotion of collaboration
by Spanish scientific institutions.

Types of collaboration maintained with scientific institutions in Spain

To reflect the nature of the scientific collaboration, this variable was measured
by 15 items in a dichotomous format (yes or not). Given the definition of collaboration
adopted in this paper, there are four types of essential collaborations to make good
use of the knowledge of Spanish researchers abroad and to increase the possibilities
of their returning to public scientific institutions: (1) elaborating joint publications,
(2) applying for patents, (3) implementing joint research projects, and (4) attending
conferences. Further, collaborations such as (5) obtaining research contracts and
(6) execution/tutoring of PhD theses can help in this regard. Additionally, since,
in order to access vacancies in Spanish public institutions professional experience
is increasingly valued, the following aspects can be highlighted: (7) consultancy
jobs, (8) informal contacts/business placements, (9) participation in networks by
electronic means, (10) spin-off creation, (11) employee training, (12) funding procurement
for the Spanish institutions, (13) creation of new or improved products or processes,
(14) influence in socio-political changes, and (15) recruiting of researchers for
scientific Spanish institutions. All these aspects may also be valued by Spanish companies
or other private organizations in order to start internationalization processes and
obtain enhanced knowledge of professional activities developed in other countries.

Following the approach by Baruffaldi and Landoni 12], different variables were considered to create the participants profile: areas of
knowledge, sex, age, duration of the stay abroad, career stage, host country, the
reasons to move out from the national country and intention and possibility of returning
to continue with scientific career in Spain. Two more variables were added to take
into account personal reasons: civil status and paternity/maternity.

Questionnaire properties and development

In order to ensure quality, this survey was developed according to the following steps:
(1) choice of the method to approach respondents (in this case, email and social networks),
(2) selection and definition of the variables to measure, (3) identification of the
items in each variable, (4) description of the instructions, and (5) deployment of
a pilot test of the survey draft.

The pilot test focused on the questionnaire’s psychometric properties. In order to
check the validity of the obtained scores, the questionnaire was given to a group
of ten researchers in different areas. After being informed of the objectives and
variables definition, they were asked to respond it. Based on their answers, the following
aspects were addressed: (1) were the questions clear enough? (2) is there any ambiguity
in the questions? (3) is there any important issue missing? (4) do questions correspond
to the objectives of each variable? (5) are there additional questions to improve
the survey and/or its results?

This checking motivated us to include some questions not originally considered in
our draft, for example those concerning their reasons to move and their intention
to return. All the researchers in the checking exercise considered that all the questions
were clear and without any ambiguity.

Considering the character of the variables ‘Profile of Spanish researchers abroad’
and ‘Efforts made by national scientific institutions to promote collaboration’, it
is unnecessary to address their reliability. The first one is composed of independent
sociodemographic variables whereas the second comprises only one item. To test reliability
for the variables ‘Level of national and international scientific collaboration’ and
‘Efforts made by the host country to achieve collaboration’, the two-half method was
used due to the small number of items these variables consisted of. The results for
the first variable indicate a high correlation between test forms (0.64); the Spearman-Brown
coefficient was 0.80 and the two halves of Guttman 0.74, indicating an adequate reliability.
The second of these variables presents better reliability, with a high correlation
between test forms of 0.78, a Spearman-Brown coefficient of 0.89 and the two halves
of Guttman 0.86. Finally, the reliability of the variable ‘Types of collaboration
maintained with scientific institutions in Spain’ was estimated by internal consistency
(Cronbach Alpha), which shows to have a high value (??=?0.78).

Study design and data analysis

The study was both quantitative and cross-sectional, with an associative and comparative
strategy design 36]. Two types of data analysis were carried out. For the variables ‘Level of national
and international scientific collaboration’, ‘Efforts made by the host country to
achieve collaboration’ and ‘Efforts made by national scientific institutions to promote
collaboration’, an inferential analysis was carried out with the aim of comparing
the average ranks of formed groups according to four different areas of knowledge:
social and legal sciences and humanities, sciences, health sciences, and engineering
and architecture. This inferential analysis was made with a non-parametric statistic
(Kruskal–Wallis test) due to the failure of the normality assumption or because of
the ordinal nature of the data. In the case of the variables ‘Types of collaboration
maintained with scientific institutions in Spain’ and ‘Profile of Spanish researchers
abroad’ a descriptive analysis was used, including graphics, frequencies and percentage
analyses. The analyses were conducted using SSPS 17.0 software.