Examining International Research Collaboration during the COVID-19 Pandemic using arXiv Preprints

ABSTRACT

This research-in-progress paper seeks to understand how the pandemic affected international research collaboration different countries and regions. It collected 333,793 preprints submitted to ArXiv between 2019 and 2020 to compare international research collaboration patterns pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 eras. The paper finds that international research collaboration has been substantially affected by the pandemic, but the impact is manifested in varied extent over different time periods and in different countries. The project observed 1.55% decrease in international research collaboration in 2020 as compared with 2019. More specifically, there was a significant drop of international research collaboration at the early stage of the pandemic (from January 2020 until May 2020), and a sturdy recovery (to pre-COVID time) after May 2020. The change pattern varies by discipline and country. The results also demonstrate the resilience and adaptiveness of the scientific community in maintaining international research collaboration.