Mainland Chinese Academics In Hong Kong:Academic Collaboration Networks And Research Productivity

With the improvement of national comprehensive strength and the continuous implementation of various talents’ schemes in recent decade,a large number of returnees have returned to China for innovation and business.Most of the high-level talents are gathering in universities.Their living status and academic career development have received much concern.There have been studies focusing on returnees who come back to mainland China,but few concerns those who are engaged in academic careers in Hong Kong.This study focuses on how these mainland scholars with diverse educational backgrounds develop their academic profession in the universities of Hong Kong,integrating Chinese and Western styles.With a survey of mainland Chinese teachers from University X and Z in Hong Kong,this study analyzes the formation process and the structural characteristics of scholars’ academic collaboration networks,examines their scientific research productivity from two aspects of quantity and quality,and explores the relations between collaboration networks and research productivity.This study adopts text analysis method to tease the staff regulations and the research funds policies of Hong Kong government and universities;analyzes scholars’ curriculum vitas to identify their personal information and revises the research plan;interviews samples of 21 teachers and sketches the characteristics of their academic collaboration networks and employs literature metrology to make statistics of 56 teachers’ research outputs.The major findings of this dissertation include as follows:First,the mainland Chinese scholars in Hong Kong universities(MCSHK)work collaboratively across borders and organizations.Their academic collaboration extremely differs in various disciplines.Compared with teachers in the field of humanities and social sciences,those in the field of science and engineering have more research collaboration and co-authors,including more trans-regional and cross-border collaboration,especially in medicine.Second,the MCSHK mainly publish in international core periodicals in English,and teachers in the field of humanities may also have some publications in Chinese.Both quality and quantity of their research outputs are high.The amount of publications becomes higher after they went to Hong Kong,and more than 80% of their papers are published in Q1 and Q2 periodicals.Thirdly,with the increase of professional age,the quantity of their research outputs rises with fluctuations,while the professional age has little influence on the quality.The research collaboration contributes to the increase of the number of scholars’ research publications,and the influential factors of papers are positively correlated with the number of the co-authors and the internationalization of the co-authors.This study reveals the characteristics of MCSHK’ academic collaboration networks and research achievements,expanding the thinking for the study of academic relationship between Hong Kong and mainland Chinese scholars and the circulation of academic talents.The combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods comprehensively shows the intrinsic relations of scholars’ research collaboration networks and scientific research productivity.