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An in-depth analysis of government funding and international collaboration

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 An in-depth analysis of government funding and international
collaboration in scientific research

Ping Zhou1*, Xiaojing Cai1, and Xiaozan Lyu1,2

1
Zhejiang University, School of Public Affairs, Dept of Information Resources Management, No. 866
Yuhangtang Road, 310059 Hangzhou (China)
2
Leiden University, Central for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Faculty of Social and Behavioral
Sciences, Leiden University, 2300 AX Leiden (Netherlands)

Abstract
Based on publications indexed in the Web of Science, the current study focused on internationally collaborated
publications and publications acknowledging government funding of developing and developed countries
including China, the US, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Brazil. Specific focus is placed on
national funding agencies (i.e., focal agencies) supporting competitive research in science. The focal agencies of
the six countries include the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the US National Science
Foundation (NSF), German Research Foundation (DFG), the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research
(NWO), National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF), and National Council for Scientific and
Technological Development of Brazil (CNPq). Results show that different countries vary in arrangement of
government funding sources in support of competitive research projects. China and Brazil are centralized to the
NSFC and CNPq, whereas the remaining four countries have relatively decentralized sources. The six focal
national funding agencies of the current study are more efficient than non-focal agencies in raising citation
impact, with the NWO, NSF, and NSFC perform better than non-focal agencies of corresponding countries.
International collaboration improves citation impact, with the developing countries benefit more. Authorship
(first or corresponding authorship) also plays a role in international collaboration. Collaboration led by authors
from developed countries has a positive effect whereas that led by authors from developing countries usually
have negative effects on citation impact. Interaction between funding and collaboration may have results
different from those when these two factors are considered separately, which suggests being cautious while
discussing effects of either of the two factors.

Article Highlights
⚫ Different countries vary in arranging government funding of competitive research. China and Brazil
have centralized funding sources to the NSFC and the CNPq, whereas thoses of the other four
countries are relatively decentralized.
⚫ The share of funded papers in all countries continues to increase, but that funded by the focal agencies
differs: that of the NSFC continues to grow, that of South Africa grows slightly, and those of the
remaining countries decline.
⚫ Funding helps improve citation impact. Among the six focal agencies, the NWO, NSF and NSFC
perform better in raising citation impact compared with domestic non-focal agencies.
⚫ International collaboration improves citation impact of developing countries. Collaborating with the
developed countries, especially with the US works best. Collaboration led by authors from the
developing countries may have negative effects in terms of citation impact of publications.
⚫ Interaction between funding and collaboration may have results different from those when these two
factors are considered separately.

Keywords: Government funding; International Collaboration; Citation impact; Focal agency

Corresponding author
Ping Zhou, Zhejiang University, School of Public Affairs, Dept of Information Resources Management, No. 866
Yuhangtang Road, 310059 Hangzhou (China). Email: pingzhou@zju.edu.cn

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3651056

Acknowledgments
This study is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number: 71843012) and the major
basic theoretical research project of Zhejiang University (grant number 16ZDJC003). Thank the Centre for Science
and Technology Studies (CWTS) in Leiden University for allowing access to its CWTS-licensed version of the
Web of Science database (WoS) of Clarivate. Dr. Rodrigo Costas, a senior researcher of CWTS, provided
suggestions of selecting target countries and indicators. Dr. Clara Calero-Medina, a researcher of CWTS offered
help in collecting funded data of CWTS. We are grateful for the reviewer’s comments and suggestions.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3651056

Introduction

Government funding plays a significant role in the development of science, and has attracted extensive interests
from academic community. Positive effects of government funding on raising citation impact of publications (e.g.,
Yan, Wu, & Song, 2018) and breakthrough inventions (Corredoira, Goldfarb, & Shi, 2018) have been found.
Variations in terms of funding efficiency may exist between different funding systems. Among many factors,
national research evaluation systems (Sandström & Van Besselaar, 2016), academic freedom, and university
stratification play significant roles in affecting funding efficiency (Sandström & Van den Besselaar, 2018). In the
current era that scientific discovery increasingly relies on wide-spread collaboration (Bozeman & Corley, 2004;
Choi, Yang, & Park, 2015; Cimini, Zaccaria, & Gabrielli, 2016; Wagner, 2018) including international
collaboration (Frame & Carpenter, 1979; Wagner, Park, & Leydesdorff, 2015), international collaboration has
become a hot topic in recent years (Chen, Zhang, & Fu, 2019; D’Ippolito & Rüling, 2019). Research topics vary
from the roles of international collaboration in publication productivity and citation impact (Bozeman, Fay, &
Slade, 2013; Lee & Bozeman, 2005; Van Raan, 1998), network position of specific countries (Adams, 2012; Guan,
Yan, & Zhang, 2017; Todeva & Knoke, 2005; Wang, Wang, & Philipsen, 2017; Zhao & Guan, 2011), to
collaboration patterns (Leydesdorff & Wagner, 2008; Todeva & Knoke, 2005). The effect of international
collaboration on raising citation impact of publications varies significantly among countries and is dependent on
collaborating partners to a large extent (De Moya-Anegon, Guerrero-Bote, Lopez-Illescas, & Moed, 2018;
Guerrero Bote, Olmeda-Gómez, & de Moya-Anegón, 2013; Lancho-Barrantes, Guerrero-Bote, & de Moya-
Anegón, 2013; Sud & Thelwall, 2016). Collaborating with the US especially when the US researchers serve as
corresponding authors would benefit most (De Moya-Anegon et al., 2018; Guerrero Bote et al., 2013; Moya-
Anegón, Guerrero-Bote, Bornmann, & Moed, 2013).

Both funding and international collaboration play vital roles in scientific research but were treated in isolation in
many studies. One typical perspective is on the role of funding in facilitating international collaboration, and with
no exception, positive effect has been confirmed (Cimini et al., 2016; Clark & Llorens, 2012; Liu, Liang, Tuuli,
& Chan, 2018; Ubfal & Maffioli, 2011). Another popular perspective is on whether international collaboration
facilitates access to funding supports (Zhou & Tian, 2014). The positive effect of funding and international
collaboration on citation impact have been proven when the two elements (funding and international collaboration)
were viewed in isolation (Leydesdorff, Wagner, & Bornmann, 2019; Zhou, Zhong, & Yu, 2013), otherwise, the
effect of government funding tends to be a small adverse (Leydesdorff, Bornmann, & Wagner, 2019).

Given that funding and international collaboration may interact with each other and thus produce a more complex
effect on citation impact, we decide to explore further on this topic, and presented the results at the ISSI 2019
(Zhou, Cai, Xiong, & Lyu, 2019).The current version is an extension of the conference paper. More factors such
as collaboration size, funding sources, and research fields are taken into consideration. By focusing on publications
acknowledging government funding of six different countries, we hope to answer the following questions: (1)
What is the contribution of funded research to science? Does country variation exist? (2) Are there differences
among countries in the citation impact of their publications acknowledging support of national funding agencies?
(3) What is the role of international collaboration in different countries? Does country variation exist in the effect
3

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3651056

of first or corresponding authorship upon citation impact (4) How do funding and international collaboration
interact with each other? Upon answering the four questions, discussion will be carried out.

Data and methods

Bibliometric data in 2009-2016 are extracted from the CWTS-licensed version of the Web of Science (WoS)
database of Clarivate. Six countries including China, Brazil, South Africa, Germany, the Netherlands, and the US
are selected to illustrate the situations in both developing and developed countries. The national funding agencies
supporting basic research of the six countries (Table 1) will be a focus, and thus will be named as focal agencies
for convenience, and those not supported by the focal agencies are named as non-focal agencies. Funded
publications are harvested from CWTS funding organization database originated from the WoS index fields FO
and FT. Publications acknowledging support of a focal agency but none of the authors from the corresponding
country are excluded to avoid possible disturbance of results.

Table 1. Names and abbreviations of the focal agencies.

Country Names of focal agencies Abbreviations of focal agencies
China National Natural Science Foundation of China NSFC_CN
Brazil National Council for Scientific and Technological Development CNPq_BR
of Brazil
South Africa National Research Foundation of South Africa NRF_ZA
Germany German Research Foundation DFG_DE
Netherlands Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research NWO_NL
USA US National Science Foundation NSF_US

Field classification is based on CWTS 35 subject categories. Because not all scientific fields are supported by the
focal agencies of the current study, we only cover subject categories that are main supporting areas of the six focal
agencies. Thus, 22 subject categories1 remain. Since the current study focuses on journal publications, only those
with journal papers as a main type of research outcome will be covered. Although highly productive in journal
publications, the area Clinical Medicine is not covered because it is not the major area supported by the National
Science Foundation (NSF_US). In the end, six subject categories including Basic Life Sciences, Biological
Sciences, Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Environmental Sciences & Technology, Mathematics as well as
Physics & Materials Science remain.

Two sets of indicators measuring publication productivity and citation impact are used. For productivity, we apply
the percentage of funded publications. The Mean Normalized Citation Scores (MNCS) proposed by CWTS and
percentage of top-1% highly cited publications are used to measure the average citation impact of a publication
category (see Table 2) under variable citation window.

1
Agriculture and Food Science, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Basic Life Sciences, Basic Medical Sciences,
Biological Sciences, Biomedical sciences, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering and
Construction, Clinical Medicine, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences and Technology, Electrical Engineering
and Telecommunication, Energy Science and Technology, Environmental Sciences and Technology, General
and Industrial Engineering, Health Sciences, Instruments and Instrumentation, Mathematics, Mechanical
Engineering and Aerospace, Multidisciplinary Journals, Physics and Materials Science, Statistical Sciences.
4

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By our definition, a publication is internationally collaborated if two or more countries appear in author addresses.
Single-author publications affiliated to two or more countries are also considered as international collaboration.
Publications with two authors in which both share the same country and one of them has a second country
affiliation would also be treated as international collaboration. In co-authored publications, the roles of different
authors vary and those of first and corresponding authors are most significant. For example, the positive role of
the US as corresponding authorship has been found in different studies (De Moya-Anegon et al., 2018; Guerrero
Bote et al., 2013; Lancho-Barrantes et al., 2013). Investigating country affiliations of first or corresponding
authorship may provide deeper insights on the role of a country in international collaboration. The current study
will explore both first- and corresponding-authored collaboration of a target country. Considering that the effect
of collaboration with scientific leading and following countries may differ, we classify countries into two sets -
Group 7 countries (i.e., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and
non-G7 countries in regression analysis. Collaboration with the US will be analyzed specially because of its
absolutely leading position in science.

To analyze the effect of different factors on citation impact, publications are classified into different categories as
illustrated in Table 2.

Table 2. Publication classification.

Publication Category Definition
All publications All publications regardless of being funded or not.
PFA Publications acknowledging any types of funding support.
PFF* Publications acknowledging funding support of a focal agency (i.e., NSFC_CN,
NSF_US, DFG_DE, NWO_NL, CNPq_BR, NRF_ZA).
PFA-without-PFF Publications not acknowledging support of the focal agencies.
PnotFA Publications without funding acknowledgement.
PFF and IntNatl Internationally collaborated publications acknowledging funding support of a
focal agency.
(PFA-without-PFF) and Internationally collaborated publications with funding not including the focal
IntNatl agencies.
First country First-author publications of a target country in international collaboration.
Reprint country Corresponding-author publications of a target country in international
collaboration.
G7 countries Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US

Results

Both descriptive and regression results will be illustrated in this section. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression
with robust standard errors is used to verify the effects of funding and international collaboration on citation impact
when they are considered alone and together.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3651056

Descriptive analysis

As expected, the results further prove the importance of funding supports in national publication production, but
country variations exist. Around 80% of publications of the six countries have acknowledged grant support. With
over 87% of funded publications, China is most prominent. Situations in the remaining five countries are similar
(70-77%). In terms of percentage of publications acknowledging grant of the focal agencies in the total national
funded publications (i.e., % (PFF/PFA)), that of CNPq_BR and NSFC_CN is the highest and with similar value
(71%). In other words, about 71% of funded publications of Brazil and China are supported by the corresponding
focal agencies (i.e., CNPq_BR and NSFC_CN). The percentage contribution of NSF_US to the US funded
publications is the least (24%), whereas that of DFG_DE, NRF_ZA, and NWO_NL are respectively 40%, 33%
and 32% (Fig 1a).

a. Percentage Share of funded publications

100
% (PFF/PFA) % PFA % PnotFA
80

60
%

40

20

0
BR CN DE ZA NL US

Fig 1. Output and annual trend in 2009-2016.

With the highest percentage of funded publications, China far exceeds the other five countries. The six countries
have one thing in common: They all had a growing share of funded publications in national total until 2015 when
the growth momentum started to change – five countries (i.e., China, the US, Germany, The Netherlands, and
South Africa) stopped growing, leaving Brazil the only one keeping the growth momentum (Fig 1b). With respect
to the share of a focal agency in total funded publications (PFF in PFA) of a country, that of NSFC_CN has kept
growing, that of NRF_ZA has increased slightly, and those of the remaining four countries have decreased (Fig
1c). The growing share of NSFC_CN in funded publications of China implies the critical role of NSFC_CN in

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China’s basic research, and such a role continues to strengthen. In contrast, the shares of the focal agencies in the
funded publications of the US, Germany, the Netherlands, and Brazil (NSF_US, DFG_DE, NWO_NL, and
CNPq_BR) are declining. Such decline does not necessarily mean that the importance of these agencies is reducing,
but it may imply that growing number of other funding sources are acknowledged in publications of these countries.
In supporting competitive projects of basic research, China is highly centralized whereas the opposite is true in the
US, Germany, the Netherlands, and Brazil.

Citation impact measured by MNCS is, however, a different landscape. The developed countries perform better
than the developing ones. When comparison is done among each type of publications, the Netherlands performs
best followed by the US and Germany. Funded publications including those of PFF and PFA-without-PFF perform
better than unfunded ones (PnotFA). Publications funded by the focal agencies (PFF) perform better than those
funded by non-focal agencies (PFA-without-PFF) in the Netherlands (NWO_NL), the US (NSF_US), and China
(NSFC_CN), whereas the opposite is true in Germany (DFG_DE), Brazil (CNPq_BR), and South Africa
(NRF_ZA). In the situation that citation impact of unfunded publications of China is remarkably lower than that
of world average and is even lower than that of South Arica, that of publications funded by NSFC_CN reach a
level higher than that of world average, and to a level higher than that of funded publications of South Africa (Fig
2a).

a. MNCS b. TOP-1%
2.0 3.0
PFF PFA-without-PFF PnotFA PFF PFA-without-PFF PnotFA
2.5
1.5
2.0
%

1.0 1.5

1.0
0.5
0.5

0.0 0.0
NL US DE CN ZA BR NL US DE CN ZA BR

Fig 2. MNCS and percentage of top-1% highly cited publications (2009-2016).

Similar situation happens in terms of share of top-1% highly cited publications for the three categories (i.e., PFF,
PFA-without-PFF, and PnotFA): the developed countries perform better than the developing ones. When
comparison is done among each category of publications, the Netherlands performs best followed by the US and
Germany. Funded publications including both PFF and PFA-without-PFF perform better than unfunded ones
(PnotFA). Publications funded by the focal agencies (PFF) perform better than those funded by non-focal agencies
(PFA-without-PFF) in the Netherlands (NWO_NL), the US (NSF_US), and China (NSFC_CN), whereas the
opposite is true in Germany (DFG_DE), Brazil (CNPq_BR), and South Africa (NRF_ZA). In the situation that the
percentage of top-1% highly cited publications of unfunded Chinese publications is lower than 1% and is even
lower than that of South Africa, NSFC_CN funding has raised the indicator of Chinese publications to a level close
to that of German DFG_DE funded publications (Fig 2b).

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Although disciplinary and country-specific differences exist in terms of funding strength measured by percentage
of PFA in all publications of a country, some countries share some common points. For example, the US, the
Netherlands, Germany, and South Africa provide least supports to research in Mathematics (55-62%) – a subject
area costing little in experimental facilities and materials. The share of funded publications in Mathematics in the
Netherlands is the lowest but has already exceeded 50%. Research in Environmental Sciences & Technology is the
second lowest funded subject area in the four countries. China and Brazil have common ground in funding research
in the field of Mathematics – funded publications take high shares in the two countries (87% and 78%). The
situation in China is especially worth noticing, where funded publications are almost evenly distributed among the
subject areas. Research in Biological Sciences in China is the area being funded with the highest percentage (91.5%,
Fig 3).

% (PFA/all)
100

90

80
%

70

60

50
CN BR US DE ZA NL
Basic Life Sciences Biological Sciences
Chemistry & Chemical Engineering Environmental Sciences & Technology
Mathematics Physics & Materials Science

Fig 3. Percentage share of funded publications in 2009-2016.

With regard to the ratio of focal-agency funded to total funded publications (PFF/PFA) of a country, the six
countries can be divided into two groups (Fig 4). One group has high percentage of PFF/PFA (61-80%) and
consists of China and Brazil. The other group is composed of the remaining four countries with significantly lower
percentage of PFF/PFA (11-53%). The NSFC_CN or CNPq_BR take the absolute lead in supporting basic
research and contribute most to funded publications of the two countries. Although Mathematics has the least
percentage of funded publications in the US, Germany, the Netherlands, and South Africa (Fig 3), but has the
highest percentage of PFF/PFA among the six fields in the US (Fig 4).

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 % (PFF / PFA)
90
75
60
%

45
30
15
0
CN BR US DE ZA NL
Basic Life Sciences Biological Sciences
Chemistry & Chemical Engineering Environmental Sciences & Technology
Mathematics Physics & Materials Science

Fig 4. Percentage share of publications supported by the focal agencies in the total funded publications of a
country.

In the following, we will analyze citation impact measured by MNCS of each of the six countries in the six subject
areas. The rank order follows that exhibited in Fig 2 in most cases. The developed countries take the lead and
China frequently stands between the developed and developing countries. the Netherlands takes the lead in the six
areas except for Mathematics and Chemistry & Chemical Engineering where the US is the leader. The second
positions in the other four areas are taken by the US. Germany takes the third position in five areas except for
Chemistry & Chemical Engineering in which the third position is taken by China. In Physics & Materials Science,
however, South Africa performs better than China (Fig 5).

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 Chemistry & Chemical
Basic Life Sciences Biological Sciences
Engineering
2.0 2.0 2.0
1.8 1.8 1.8
1.6 1.6 1.6
1.4 1.4 1.4
1.2 1.2 1.2
1.0 1.0 1.0
0.8 0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4 0.4
0.2 0.2 0.2
0.0 0.0 0.0
NL US DE CN ZA BR NL US DE CN ZA BR US NL CN DE ZA BR

Environmental Sciences &

Mathematics Physics & Materials Science
Technology
2.0 2.0 2.0
Physics & Materials Science
1.8 1.8
2.5 1.8
1.6 1.6 1.6
1.4 2.0
1.4 1.4
1.2 1.2 1.2
1.5
1.0 1.0 1.0
0.8 0.8
1.0 0.8
0.6 0.6 0.6
0.4 0.5
0.4 0.4
0.2 0.2 0.2
0.0 0.0
0.0 0.0
US NL DE CN ZA BR NL DEUS
US DE BRZAZA CN
CN NL BR US DE ZA CN BR
NL

PFF PFA-without-PFF PnotFA

Fig 5. MNCS of different publication categories.

Citation impact of each of the three sets of publications (PFF, PFA-without-PFF, and PnotFA) varies not only
within a country but also in different subject areas. In Basic Life Sciences, the Netherlands performs the best among
the six countries. As for citation impact of the three publication categories of a specific country, large variations
exist. NWO_NL-funded publications perform better than non-NWO_NL-funded ones. Similarly, NSF_US-funded
publications outperform those not funded by NSF_US. The opposite is true for those funded by DFG_DE,
NRF_ZA, and CNPq_BR. There is no clear difference between publications funded by NSFC_CN and non-
NSFC_CN. Funded publications perform better than unfunded ones in the Netherlands, the US, Germany, and
China. It is, however, not the case in South Africa and Brazil: Citation impacts of publications funded by NRF_ZA
or CNPq_BR are lower than those of unfunded, which is out of expectation (Fig 5).

In Biological Sciences, the Netherlands takes the lead again. NWO_NL-funded publications perform better than
those funded by non-NWO_NL agencies. NSF_US-funded publications significantly outperform non-NSF_US-
funded ones. Publications funded by the focal agencies of the remaining four countries perform poorer than those
not funded by the focal agencies. In Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, the US takes the lead in funded
publications. The focal agencies perform better than non-focal agencies in the US, the Netherlands and China. The
opposite is true in the other three countries (Germany, South Africa, and Brazil).

10

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In Environmental Sciences & Technology, only the focal agencies of the US (NSF_US) and China (NSFC_CN)
perform better, while the opposite is true in the other four countries. Although NSF_US-funded publications
perform slightly better than those funded by NWO_NL, publications funded by non-NWO_NL agencies perform
much better than those funded by the non-NSF_US agencies. In this case, the effect of NSF_US in raising the US’s
citation impact is better than that of NWO_NL of the Netherlands. Publications funded by DFG_DE, NRF_ZA,
and CNPq_BR perform poorer than those funded by non-focal agencies.

Publications funded by the NSF_US takes the lead and outperform those not funded by the NSF_US in
Mathematics. Publications funded by non-focal agencies in Germany, the Netherlands, and South Africa perform
better than those funded by DFG_DE, NWO_NL, and NRF_ZA. NSFC_CN-funded publications perform slightly
better than those not funded by the NSFC_CN. South Africa again is out of expectation in the poorer performance
of NRF_ZA-funded publications.

In Physics & Materials Science, the Netherlands takes the lead again. Publications funded by the focal agencies in
the Netherlands (NWO_NL), the US (NSF_US), South Africa (NRF_ZA), and China (NSFC_CN) perform better
than those not funded by the focal agencies. There is no clear difference for publications funded or unfunded by
DFG_DE or not. Brazil is the only country that non-CNPq_BR-funded publications even perform better than those
funded by CNPq_BR (Fig 5).

Regression analysis

In addition to funding support, many other factors may affect citation impact. By applying the Ordinary Least
Squares (OLS) regression, we hope to find if there is a positive or negative relation between citation impact and
other variables. In the regression, the Normalized Citation Score (NCS) of publications is the dependent variable
and publication categories (PnotFA, PFA-without-PFF, PFF) are independent variables. Dummy variables include
international collaboration (IntNatl), first authorship, corresponding authorship, as well as collaborations with the
US, G6 or non-G7 countries (i.e., Collaborating with the US, Collaborating with G6, and Collaborating with non-
G7). Funding support and international collaboration may interact with each other. To clarify if such interaction
exists, we use two sets of regression models. Model A (i.e., 1a, 2a, 3a, 4a, 5a, and 6a) does not considers such
interaction and Model B (i.e., 1b, 2b, 3b, 4b, 5b, and 6b) does. Other factors, such as publication year (Length of
years), number of references (log_refs), number of authors (log_au), number of institutions (log_ins), number of
countries (log_country), publication types (doc_article, doc_review, doc_letter) and scientific fields, may also
affect citation impact, and thus are set as controlled variables. Stepwise method is used in the regression so as to
avoid multicollinearity among the independent variables (Table 3).

The regression results of Models A and B are, in general, consistent with the results in the descriptive analysis.
Funding supports, regardless of focal or non-focal agencies of any of the six countries except for South Africa,
have positive effect on citation impact of publications, although such effects may vary among countries. The
higher-level effect of NSF_US, NSFC_CN, and NWO_NL, and lower-level effect of DFG_DE in comparison with
non-focal agencies, have been confirmed again (Table 3).
11

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 Table 3. Results of OLS regression.
China Brazil South Africa US Germany Netherlands
1a 1b 2a 2b 3a 3b 4a 4b 5a 5b 6a 6b
PFA-without-PFF 0.073*** 0.070*** 0.096*** 0.078*** 0.040*** 0.066*** 0.066*** 0.077*** 0.086*** 0.058*** 0.058***
(0.001) (0.001) (0.003) (0.004) (0.005) (0.001) (0.002) (0.002) (0.003) (0.004) (0.004)
PFF 0.087*** 0.095*** 0.076*** 0.094*** 0.108*** 0.103*** 0.058*** 0.044*** 0.088*** 0.088***
(0.001) (0.001) (0.003) (0.003) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.003) (0.005) (0.005)
IntNatl 0.107*** 0.130*** 0.098*** 0.129*** 0.038*** -0.010*** -0.012*** -0.006*
(0.001) (0.002) (0.003) (0.006) (0.006) (0.001) (0.002) (0.003)
(PFA-without-PFF) 0.015** 0.069*** -0.000 -0.010**
X IntNatl (0.008) (0.006) (0.003) (0.004)
PFF X IntNatl -0.042*** -0.066*** 0.014*** 0.031***
(0.002) (0.007) (0.003) (0.004)
Length of years 0.012*** 0.012*** 0.014*** 0.014*** 0.013*** 0.013*** 0.014*** 0.014*** 0.012 *** 0.012*** 0.015*** 0.015***
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.001) (0.001) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.001) (0.001)
log_refs 0.287*** 0.286*** 0.176*** 0.175*** 0.212*** 0.213*** 0.220*** 0.220*** 0.231*** 0.231*** 0.248*** 0.248***
(0.001) (0.001) (0.002) (0.002) (0.004) (0.004) (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.003) (0.003)
log_au 0.115*** 0.115*** 0.056*** 0.059*** 0.012* 0.011* 0.119*** 0.118*** 0.062*** 0.062*** 0.024*** 0.024***
(0.001) (0.001) (0.003) (0.003) (0.006) (0.006) (0.001) (0.001) (0.002) (0.002) (0.004) (0.004)
log_ins -0.053*** -0.053*** 0.033*** 0.032*** 0.128*** 0.131*** 0.001 0.001 0.036*** 0.035*** 0.070*** 0.070***
(0.002) (0.002) (0.004) (0.004) (0.009) (0.008) (0.002) (0.002) (0.003) (0.003) (0.005) (0.005)
doc_review 0.189*** 0.189*** 0.274*** 0.273*** 0.274*** 0.273*** 0.309*** 0.309*** 0.303*** 0.303*** 0.290*** 0.290***
(0.005) (0.005) (0.009) (0.009) (0.015) (0.015) (0.003) (0.003) (0.005) (0.005) (0.009) (0.009)
doc_letter 0.583*** 0.581*** 0.422*** 0.420*** 0.427*** 0.433*** 0.406*** 0.406*** 0.543*** 0.544*** 0.473*** 0.473***
(0.015) (0.015) (0.021) (0.021) (0.043) (0.043) (0.007) (0.007) (0.018) (0.018) (0.023) (0.023)
Field dummy Yes
Constant -0.929*** -0.931*** -0.546*** -0.552*** -0.611*** -0.595*** -0.530*** -0.529*** -0.556*** -0.554*** -0.501*** -0.501***
(0.004) (0.004) (0.009) (0.009) (0.017) (0.018) (0.004) (0.004) (0.006) (0.007) (0.014) (0.014)
Observations 1085537 1085537 143000 143000 38781 38781 1168590 1168590 387207 387207 100467 100467
F 10798 10214 1244 1118 503 492 8979 7934 3445 2860 904 904
r2 0.153 0.153 0.150 0.152 0.186 0.187 0.123 0.123 0.135 0.135 0.141 0.141
Robust standard errors in parentheses
*
p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01
Notes: Of the categorical variable (i.e., PnotFA, PFA-without-PFF, and PFF), PnotFA is set as a reference category. The difference between PFA-without-PFF and PFF is
tested by the F test. Significant difference exists between coefficients of PFA-without-PFF and PFF in models 1-2 and 4-6.

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Let us see how focal and non-focal funding supports quantitatively affect citation impact according to Model A in
which the interaction between funding and international collaboration is not concerned. The better performance of
NSFC_CN, NSF_US and NWO_NL in raising citation impact compared with that of non-focal-agency supports
can be quantified as follows: For Chinese publications, the effect on raising citation impact of NSFC_CN is 9.1%
(e0.087) and that of non-NSFC_CN funding is 7.6% (e0.073); For the US publications, the effects of NSF_US and
non-NSF_US are respectively 11.4% (e0.108) and 6.8% (e0.066); For Dutch publications, the effects of NWO_NL
and non-NWO_NL are 9.2% (e0.088) and 6.0% (e0.058). The opposite happens in Germany and Brazil where non-
focal agencies are more efficient in raising citation impact: The effects of DFG_DE and non-DFG_DE on raising
citation impact are 6.0% (e0.058) and 8.0% (e0.077) respectively; similar situation happened for Brazilian publications
funded by CNPq_BR or non-CNPq_BR – the effect of the former is lower than the latter. The situation in South
Africa is very unique: non-NRF_ZA supports have raised citation impact by 1.2%, whereas the NRF_ZA plays no
role in this respect.

With regard to the role of international collaboration in raising citation impact, the developing countries benefit,
whereas the developed countries do not. With 11.3% (e0.107) increase of citation impact by collaborating with
foreign partners, China has benefited the most. Brazil and South Africa are also beneficiary with citation impact
being increased by 10.3% and 3.9% (e0.098 and e0.038) respectively. On the contrary, citation impacts of
internationally collaborated publications of the US has been lowered by about 1% (e -0.01). International
collaboration does not have significant impact, either positive or negative, on publications of German and Dutch
publications (Model A in Table 3).

Funding support has positive effect on raising citation impact, whereas the effect of international collaboration can
be positive, negative, or neutral to publications of different countries. What may happen when both funding and
international collaboration play roles together? The regression Model B may answer this question. China and
Brazil share some common points. The citation-raising effects of international collaboration on publications
funded by either the NSFC_CN or CNPq_BR are not as high as that of unfunded. It is also valid to say that either
the NSFC_CN or CNPq_BR is less effective in raising citation impact of internationally collaborated publications
than that of publications not internationally collaborated. Such kind of difference does not exist between
international collaboration and non-NSFC_CN funding of Chinese publications. For Brazilian case, the
international collaboration sees an increased effect of non-CNPq_BR funding and decreased effect of CNPq_BR
funding on the citation impact. The uniqueness of South Africa appears again when international collaboration and
funding are concerned separately, either does not have significant effect. When interactions of the two factors are
considered, the effects of non-NRF_ZA support on international collaboration or that of international collaboration
on publications of non-NRF_ZA funding are positive, which further confirm the relative inefficiency of NRF_ZA
in improving citation impact. The positive effect of NSF_US or DFG_DE on international collaboration is very
much impressive, especially at the situation that the overall effects of international collaboration are negative in
the US and Germany. This may imply that both the NSF_US and DFG_DE have high evaluation criterion for
international collaboration so that high-quality research can be ensured. No significant interaction between
international collaboration and funding is observed in the Netherlands.

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Not every author contributes equally to a collaboration. There is a consensus in scholarly community that leading
authorship (i.e., first or corresponding author) contributes the most. Collaboration involvement of developed or
developing countries may have different effects on citation impact. To clarify the above hypotheses, we applied
the OLS regression to publications of international collaboration (Table 4). International collaboration with first-
authorship from developed countries (i.e., the US, Germany, and the Netherlands) can raise citation impact. The
opposite effect is true when either first or corresponding authorship are from the two developing countries (China
and Brazil). There is no significant difference between first- or non-first authorship of South Africa. Corresponding
authorship of the US can also guarantee collaboration quality, but it is not true with corresponding authorship of
Germany or the Netherlands. The G7 countries (with or without the US) play positive roles in international
collaboration. Apart from Germany and the Netherlands, collaborating with non-G7 countries can also raise
citation impact. Germany and the Netherlands do not play significant roles in raising citation impact when they
act as corresponding authors or collaborate with non-G7.

Table 4. OLS regression based on international collaborated publications.

CN BR US DE NE ZA
First country -0.049*** -0.047*** 0.048*** 0.013*** 0.034***
(0.004) (0.009) (0.003) (0.002) (0.005)
Reprint Country -0.014*** -0.028*** 0.031*** -0.034***
(0.004) (0.009) (0.003) (0.007)
Collaboration with the US 0.117*** 0.102*** 0.126*** 0.125*** 0.128***
(0.005) (0.008) (0.003) (0.006) (0.012)
Collaboration with G6 0.044*** 0.039*** 0.068*** 0.064*** 0.060*** 0.078***
(0.005) (0.008) (0.003) (0.002) (0.005) (0.011)
Collaboration with Non-G7 0.075*** 0.023*** 0.023*** 0.054***
(0.005) (0.008) (0.004) (0.012)
PFA-without-PFF 0.066*** 0.065*** 0.070*** 0.073*** 0.055*** 0.049***
(0.004) (0.007) (0.002) (0.003) (0.005) (0.007)
PFF 0.073*** 0.038*** 0.102*** 0.063*** 0.071***
(0.004) (0.006) (0.003) (0.004) (0.007)
Length of years 0.014*** 0.013*** 0.013*** 0.012*** 0.014*** 0.012***
(0.001) (0.001) (0.000) (0.001) (0.001) (0.002)
log_refs 0.289*** 0.224*** 0.246*** 0.247*** 0.259*** 0.234***
(0.003) (0.004) (0.002) (0.002) (0.005) (0.006)
log_au 0.124*** 0.029*** 0.112*** 0.058***
(0.003) (0.006) (0.002) (0.002)
log_ins -0.075*** -0.017* 0.032*** 0.066***
(0.005) (0.010) (0.009) (0.015)
log_country -0.080*** 0.102*** -0.024*** 0.055*** 0.036
(0.012) (0.019) (0.006) (0.014) (0.027)
doc_review 0.271*** 0.279*** 0.306*** 0.309*** 0.304*** 0.287***
(0.009) (0.016) (0.005) (0.008) (0.013) (0.023)
doc_letter 0.646*** 0.419*** 0.503*** 0.563*** 0.446*** 0.408***
(0.031) (0.044) (0.015) (0.025) (0.033) (0.056)
Field dummy Yes
Observations 235686 48673 462904 219151 64939 21263
F 1336.442 335.414 2717.765 1856.937 524.216 206.555
r2 0.130 0.164 0.121 0.136 0.148 0.186
Standard robust errors in parentheses
*
p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01

Conclusions and discussion

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Funding support plays a critical role in scientific research. Among the six countries, China and Brazil are the most
prominent in terms of government funding for scientific research. Most publications from the two countries have
acknowledged supports of the focal agencies (i.e., NSFC_CN and CNPq_BR). The NSFC_CN supports majority
of research in almost all scientific areas. Whereas in the US, government funding supports spread across different
agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF_US), National Institute of Health (NIH), and Department
of Energy (DOE). These agencies are responsible for research in some specific areas. Thus, NSF_US-supported
publications account for only less than 1/3 of the total publications with funding acknowledgement. Government
funding in China is more centralized than in the other four countries (i.e., the US, Germany, the Netherlands, and
South Africa). The percentage shares of funded publications of the six countries have kept growing, although with
different trends. Contribution of the NSFC_CN to Chinese publications has kept growing, whereas that of NSF_US,
DFG_DE, and NWO_NL has decreased, and that of NRF_ZA has grown slightly. Research in different areas in
China are almost equally funded, which is not the case in the other five countries. In addition to the similarities in
high share of funded publications of the focal agencies (i.e., NSFC_CN & CNPq_BR), China and Brazil also have
similarities in high percentage of funded publications in Mathematics.

The fact that funded publications have higher citation impact may have two implications: On the one hand, funding
helps increase citation impact, and on the other hand, high citation impact increases the possibility of being funded.
Thus, it is safer to say that there exists statistical effect between funding and citation impact. Such effect varies
among countries. High funding rates of publications do not guarantee high citation impact. When citation impact
is concerned, the developed countries (i.e., the Netherlands, US, and Germany) perform better than developing
countries (i.e., South Africa, China, and Brazil), and the Netherlands performs the best. With regard to the effect
of focal versus non-focal agencies, the former does not always perform better than the latter in raising citation
impact. In most cases, the NWO_NL, NSF_US, and NSFC_CN perform better than non-focal agencies of the
corresponding countries, whereas the opposite is true for DFG_DE, NRF_ZA, and CNPq_BR. China stands
between the developed and the developing countries except in the following two subject areas: the first one is
Chemistry & Chemical Engineering where China is ahead of Germany and is ahead of the Netherlands in
Mathematics; The second area is Physics & Materials Science in which China even falls behind South Africa.
Similar to the situation when all publications are considered as a whole, the effect on improving citation impact of
some focal agencies is better than non-focal agencies, which applies to the NWO_NL, NSF_US, and NSFC_CN.
The opposite is true for the DFG_DE, NRF_ZA, and CNPq_BR.

Both descriptive and OLS regression analyses have reached the same conclusions that funding supports can help
raise citation impact. Variations exist in terms of citation-raising effects among different funding sources. Some
focal agencies (NWO_NL, NSF_US, and NSFC_CN) show higher effect than non-focal agencies, whereas some
(DFG_DE, NRF_ZA, and CNPq_BR) have lower effect. The situation in South Africa is the most unique – there
is no significant change of citation impact of publications funded by NRF_ZA but non-NRF_ZA funding does
have such effect. The above comparison is between focal and non-focal agencies within a country. For example,
when we say that NSFC_CN is better than non-focal-agency funding, the comparison is made within publications
of China. Similarly, the effect of DFG_DE is not as good as that of non-focal agencies, and the comparison is also
within publications of Germany. It is not correct to say that the NSFC_CN performs better than the DFG_DE

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because the comparison objects (i.e., publications supported by non-focal agencies) are different. In the German
situation, both the DFG_DE and non-DFG_DE agencies play positive roles in improving citation impact. Our
results can only tell that the latter perform better than former. In fact, five of the six funding agencies involved in
this study have had a positive effect on citations. The exception is NRF_ZA: the citation impact of NRF_ZA-
funded papers is not only lower than that of non-NRF_ZA funded papers but even lower than that of unfunded
papers!

The positive role of international collaboration has been confirmed by many studies (e.g. De Moya-Anegon et al.,
2018; Zhou & Bornmann, 2014). The most representative one is that of De Moya-Anegon et. al (2018) because of
the wide coverage of data – all publications of all countries indexed in Scopus in 2003-2015 were analyzed. In
addition to proving the positive role of international collaboration, the authors found a negative role of
corresponding authorship. These conclusions are true from an overall perspective. If we investigate further on the
economic position of an international partner (a country), we may get more interesting results. Developing
countries benefit more than developed countries in international collaboration. Collaborating with developed
countries especially with the US can be a first option in choosing international partners.

International collaboration is important to promote the development of science. To the developed countries,
international collaboration should still be encouraged although citation impact of publications may be negatively
affected. The value of international collaboration is not just citation impact, it can promote academic
communication, enhance research capabilities, and expand academic network of researchers from developing
countries. In addition to contributing their talents, scholars from developing countries can make up for the shortage
of human resources faced by research projects of developed countries. The negative effect of international
collaboration of the current study are statistical results. For individual collaboration, however, it is more important
in selecting collaboration partners by their research qualification rather than by their country background.
Establishing appropriate project evaluation standards is essential to ensure good funding results. Such standards
can be responded by the fact that international collaboration funded by the NSF_US and German DFG_DE have
positive effects, whereas that of China’s NSFC_CN and Brazilian CNPq are less effective on citation impact.

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