What’s in the Name? Polish-British Academic Collaboration

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12797/Politeja.22.2025.97.12

Keywords:

science and higher education policy, Poland, United Kingdom, university, research productivity, international research collaboration

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the Polish system of science and higher education has faced several important changes. By entering the European Union Poland received access to extra research funds and fully developed its participation in the EU sponsored Erasmus mobility scheme. Two waves of reforms of Polish higher education emphasized the importance of international academic collaboration. The paper analyzes trends in academic collaboration between British and Polish researchers, covering the years 2000-2020. It is based on a detailed analysis of publications indexed by Scopus, with a concurring country affiliation of the ‘United Kingdom’ and ‘Poland’ resulting in 36,582 publications in total. Even a simple descriptive statistical analysis based on ‘Subject Areas’ and ‘Keywords’ (as identified by Scopus) provided enough data to examine whether the changes of Polish higher education policy actually resulted in strengthening Polish-British academic collaboration. It has also helped to identify a few fields of studies that brought promising growth in a number of joint publications, with ‘Medicine’ being the most prominent example.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

  • Radosław Rybkowski, Jagiellonian University

    A University Professor at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, Faculty of International and Political Studies, Jagiellonian University in Krakow/Poland. His research focuses on higher education policy, especially investigated from a comparative perspective. Former Senior Fulbright Fellow at New York University and Visiting Professor at the Department of Political Science of the University of Rochester, USA. Former director of Una Europa Future University Lab, chair of Una Europa Quality Assurance Cluster.

References

“About,” Scopus, at https://blog.scopus.com/about.
View in Google Scholar

Antonowicz D., Między siłą globalnych procesów a lokalną tradycją. Polskie szkolnictwo wyższe w dobie przemian, Toruń 2015.
View in Google Scholar

Barrett A.M., Crossley M., Dachi H.A., “International Collaboration and Research Capacity Building: Learning from the EdQual Experience,” Comparative Education, vol. 47, no. 1 (2011), pp. 25-43, https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2011.541674. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2011.541674
View in Google Scholar

Bugaj J., Szarucki M., Rybkowski R., Wzmocnienie międzynarodowej współpracy akademickiej polskich instytucji szkolnictwa wyższego i budowa strategicznych relacji z zagranicznymi partnerami. Współpraca akademicka pomiędzy Polską a Wielką Brytanią, Warszawa 2021, at https://nawa.gov.pl/images/Badania-i-analizy/UK_OPRACOWANIE.pdf.
View in Google Scholar

Dąbrowa-Szefler M., Jabłecka-Prysłopska J., OECD Thematic Review of Tertiary Education: Country Background Report for Poland, Warsaw 2006.
View in Google Scholar

Dong Y. et al., “A Century of Science: Globalization of Scientific Collaborations, Citations, and Innovations,” in S. Matwin, S. Yu, F. Farooq (eds), KDD ‘17: Proceedings of the 23rd ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, New York 2017, pp. 1437-1446, https://doi.org/10.1145/3097983.3098016. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3097983.3098016
View in Google Scholar

European Commission, Peer Review: Poland’s Higher Education and Science System, Luxembourg 2017.
View in Google Scholar

Fulton O. et al., OECD Reviews of Tertiary Education: Poland, Paris 2007, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264039131-en. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264039131-en
View in Google Scholar

Korytkowski P., Kulczycki E., “Examining How Country-Level Science Policy Shapes Publication Patterns: The Case of Poland,” Scientometrics, vol. 119 (2019), pp. 1519-1543, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03092-1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03092-1
View in Google Scholar

Kwiek M., “Internationalists and Locals: International Research Collaboration in a Resource-Poor System,” Scientometrics, vol. 124 (2020), pp. 57-105, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03460-2. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03460-2
View in Google Scholar

Kwiek M., “What Large-Scale Publication and Citation Data Tell Us about International Research Collaboration in Europe: Changing National Patterns in Global Contexts,” Studies in Higher Education, vol. 46, no. 12 (2021), pp. 2629-2649, https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2020.1749254. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2020.1749254
View in Google Scholar

Kwiek M., Roszka W., “Gender Disparities in International Research Collaboration: A Study of 25,000 University Professors,” Journal of Economic Surveys, vol. 35, no. 5 (2021), pp. 1344-1380, https://doi.org/10.1111/joes.12395. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/joes.12395
View in Google Scholar

Kyvik S., Reymert I., “Research Collaboration in Groups and Networks: Differences across Academic Fields,” Scientometrics, vol. 113 (2017), pp. 951-967, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2497-5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2497-5
View in Google Scholar

Lis A., Rybkowski R., “Linkages between Academic Culture and Management in Polish Higher Education,” in B. Broucker et al. (eds), Sustaining the Future of Higher Education, Leiden 2021, pp. 136-152, https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004467804_009. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004467804_009
View in Google Scholar

Ministerstwo Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego, Ewaluacja jakości działalności naukowej. Przewodnik, Warszawa 2018, at https://www.gov.pl/attachment/c28d4c75-a14e-46c5-bf41-912ea28cda5b.
View in Google Scholar

Mosbah-Natanson S., Gingras Y., “The Globalization of Social Sciences? Evidence from a Quantitative Analysis of 30 Years of Production, Collaboration and Citations in the Social Sciences (1980-2009),” Current Sociology, vol. 62, no. 5 (2014), pp. 626-646, https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392113498866. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392113498866
View in Google Scholar

Obamba M.O., Mwema J.K., “Symmetry and Asymmetry: New Contours, Paradigms, and Politics in African Academic Partnerships,” Higher Education Policy, vol. 22, no. 3 (2009), pp. 349-371. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/hep.2009.12
View in Google Scholar

Ponds R., “The Limits to Internationalization of Scientific Research Collaboration,” The Journal of Technology Transfer, vol. 34, no. 1 (2009), pp. 76-94, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-008-9083-1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-008-9083-1
View in Google Scholar

Robson S., “Internationalization: A Transformative Agenda for Higher Education?,” Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, vol. 17, no. 6 (2011), pp. 619-630, https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2011.625116. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2011.625116
View in Google Scholar

Rybkowski R., Bugaj J., Szarucki M., Wzmocnienie międzynarodowej współpracy akademickiej polskich instytucji szkolnictwa wyższego i budowa strategicznych relacji z zagranicznymi partnerami. Współpraca akademicka pomiędzy Polską a Stanami Zjednoczonymi Ameryki, Warszawa 2021, at https://nawa.gov.pl/images/Badania-i-analizy/USA_OPRACOWANIE.pdf.
View in Google Scholar

Rybkowski R., “University as a Collaborator: Universities, Society, and Culture,” in M. Banaś, F. Czech, M. Kołaczek (eds), Universities and Non-Governmental Organisations: A Comparative European Study of the Potential for Civil Society Collaboration, New York 2024, pp. 49-61. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003361169-6
View in Google Scholar

Sakata I. et al., “Bibliometric Analysis of Service Innovation Research: Identifying Knowledge Domain and Global Network of Knowledge,” Technological Forecasting and Social Change, vol. 80, no. 6 (2013), pp. 1085-1093. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2012.03.009
View in Google Scholar

Shin J.C., Cummings W.K., “Multilevel Analysis of Academic Publishing across Disciplines: Research Preference, Collaboration, and Time on Research,” Scientometrics, vol. 85, no. 2 (2010), pp. 581-594, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0236-2. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0236-2
View in Google Scholar

“Strategia Gowina,” Ministerstwo Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego, 2016, at http://pjg.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Strategia-Gowina.pdf.
View in Google Scholar

Szarucki M., Bugaj J., Rybkowski R., Wzmocnienie międzynarodowej współpracy akademickiej polskich instytucji szkolnictwa wyższego i budowa strategicznych relacji z zagranicznymi partnerami. Współpraca akademicka pomiędzy Polską a Wietnamem, Warszawa 2021, at https://nawa.gov.pl/images/Badania-i-analizy/WIETNAM_OPRACOWANIE.pdf.
View in Google Scholar

Szarucki M. et al., “A Comprehensive Review of Research Approaches in the Energy Sector: A Management Sciences Perspective,” Energies, vol .15, no. 22 (2022): 8495, https://doi.org/10.3390/en15228495. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/en15228495
View in Google Scholar

Ustawa z dnia 20 lipca 2018 r. – Prawo o szkolnictwie wyższym i nauce (Dz.U. 2018, poz. 1668, z późn. zm.).
View in Google Scholar

Woldegiyorgis A.A., Proctor D., de Wit H., “Internationalization of Research: Key Considerations and Concerns,” Journal of Studies in International Education, vol. 22, no. 2 (2018), pp. 161-176. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315318762804
View in Google Scholar

The World Bank, Tertiary Education in Poland, Warsaw 2004.
View in Google Scholar

Downloads

Published

03-09-2025

How to Cite

“What’s in the Name? Polish-British Academic Collaboration”. 2025. Politeja 22 (3(97): 253-69. https://doi.org/10.12797/Politeja.22.2025.97.12.