27Analysis of the Asia-based authors who published at least three articles between
1980 and 2015 reveals that the trend observed among the highest-producing research-
ers in Table 2.1 can be generalised to most authors in the field. Of the researchers
with at least three publications in the whole period, 81% published only between
2000 and 2015, 7% published between 1980–1999 and 2000–2015 and 12% pub-
lished only between 1980 and 1999, indicating that they have since retired or are
otherwise no longer engaged in producing higher-education research. This suggests
that a new generation of higher-education researchers has emerged and is responsible
for knowledge production and development in the field, in line with the developing
character of higher-education research as a field of knowledge in Asia (Jung and
Horta 2013 ). The emergent nature of Asian higher-education research is also evident
from Asian researchers’ tendency to collaborate with native English- speaking
researchers on publications in international higher-education journals. In the period
under study, 25% of all of the articles published by Asia-affiliated authors were pro-
duced in collaboration with researchers based in the United States, 16% with
researchers based in the United Kingdom and 15% with researchers based in
Australia. Within Asia, collaboration most frequently occurs with researchers in
Hong Kong (6%), followed by China (5%, the same percentage as Canada) and
Singapore (4%). Unsurprisingly, countries developing their research capacity rely on
countries with leading scientific communities for collaboration (indeed, this phenom-
enon is prevalent in most disciplines; see Yonezawa et al. 2016 ; Mosbah- Natanson
and Gingras 2014 ). However, the extent of this collaboration is surprising. For exam-
ple, the proportion of internationally published higher-education research on which
Asian-affiliated researchers have collaborated with US researchers is exactly the
same as the proportion produced collaboratively by all Asian countries (25%).
Although collaboration between researchers in the scientific community is wel-
come in a globalising world facing increasingly complex challenges, excessive reli-
ance on partners outside Asia to the detriment of regional collaboration may
adversely affect the identity, development and theoretical and methodological cre-
ativity of Asia-based higher-education researchers (Yang 2014 ). This tension is par-
ticularly evident in post-colonial countries and territories and has led to an emphasis
on searching for and conceptualising appropriate models of higher-education sys-
tems and institutions in Asia (Li 2012 ). The increase in ‘soft’ and economic power
of Asian countries operating within global research and higher-education systems
has only made this tension more apparent and more pressing (Zha and Hayhoe
2014 ; Postiglione 2014 ).
Conclusion
The contribution of higher-education researchers affiliated with Asia-based institu-
tions to international knowledge production in the field of higher education is grow-
ing. However, this growth began only recently, in the early 2000s, and Asia-based
researchers are currently underperforming relative to researchers in other parts of
2 Higher-Education Researchers in Asia: The Risks of Insufficient Contribution...