International scholarly collaboration in science, technology and medicine and social science of Turkish scientists

The fundamental research question being pursued in this study is what influences the degree of international scientific collaboration among Turkish scientists? While the study has been illuminated by bibliometrics, the research study is largely exploratory and qualitative. Email questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews were employed to collect data from Turkish scholars. According to the findings, both external (uncontrollable) factors (e.g., institutional, economic, and governmental factors) and internal factors (e.g., motivation, ambition, trust, and hope) play roles in the international collaboration behavior of Turkish scholars. It is expected that this research will contribute to the understanding of Turkey’s international scientific collaboration processes pertaining to technology, economic, strategic, and cultural policy factors. Also, the analytical framework of this study may be useful for analyzing other developing countries that have a similar scientific and demographic context to Turkey’s.