A quantitative assessment of potential benefits and challenges of international researcher mobility for home and host countries: evidence from the Chinese Scholarship Council programmes

Qianqian Xie () and Alfredo Yegros-Yegros ()
Additional contact information
Qianqian Xie: Leiden University
Alfredo Yegros-Yegros: Leiden University

Scientometrics, 2025, vol. 130, issue 8, No 14, 4545-4572

Abstract: Abstract Understanding the benefits and challenges of international mobility programmes for both home and host countries is essential for evaluating them. This study provides a quantitative assessment of the Chinese government-sponsored international mobility programmes, the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) programmes, by examining their effects on home and host countries across disciplines from five key perspectives: output volume, impact, collaboration, funding, and involvement in security-sensitive research areas. Our findings suggest that, for the home country (China), the funding programmes enhance China’s research capabilities in alignment with its strategic development priorities. Additional evidence suggests that the funding programmes facilitate international collaboration and allow awardees to work with highly cited researchers. For host countries, the funding programmes promote collaboration with China and may support host researchers where funding might be scarce. Also, the funding programmes place little emphasis on dual-use research and have limited ties to the “Seven Sons of National Defence” universities. This finding addresses current concerns in some host countries regarding security challenges. The study provides evidence for policymakers to develop strategies that maximise the benefits of international mobility programmes and address associated challenges.

Keywords: Research funding; International mobility; Quantitative assessment; China Scholarship Council; Research collaboration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-025-05391-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:scient:v:130:y:2025:i:8:d:10.1007_s11192-025-05391-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11192

DOI: 10.1007/s11192-025-05391-2

Access Statistics for this article

Scientometrics is currently edited by Wolfgang Glänzel

More articles in Scientometrics from Springer, Akadémiai Kiadó
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().