As internationalization of higher education has been firmly on the strategic agenda of governments, it is not surprising that policies and practices in higher education settings have been upscaled to align with the evolving concept of internationalization. The internationalization of higher education initially referred to the physical mobility of international students and researchers. Recently, the scope of this term has significantly expanded, covering physical and virtual mobility, international research collaboration (IRC), and partnership. Among these dimensions, IRC, with its numerous benefits, has emerged as an epicenter and created a gravity that prompted governments to integrate collaboration into their policies and encourage researchers to engage in international activities. Türkiye is among the developing countries that have pursued comprehensive and incremental internationalization policies, striving to position itself as a key actor in the global higher education landscape. Considering international student mobility, Türkiye made progress by shifting from being a peripheral country to an emergent hub (Knight & Morshidi, 2011; Kondakci et al., 2018) and even secured its place as an influential and central hub in its region by creating security zones with alliance-building through higher education (Kaya-Kasikci & Glass, 2024). Despite this progress, Türkiye’s performance in IRC remains limited, revealing a disparity within the various dimensions of internationalization. Regarding this, we argue that while Turkey has gained prominence in student mobility, it is still a peripheral country in IRC. 

Aspiring to be a global power and regional leader by building connections with European Education Areas, Islamic countries, and Africa, Türkiye’s strategic document for 2018-2022 (2017), underscores the value of increasing IRC capacity as a key objective. However, like other peripheral countries, Türkiye has no central position in scientific production despite the growing trend in internationally produced articles and pushing its limits to be integrated into the world scientific system. Existing studies point out the persistent disparity in IRC between developed and developing countries, often pushing researchers from peripheral nations to collaborate either with peripheral nations with similar contexts (e.g., Kondakci et al., 2024) or with developed countries due to limited access to central networks, inadequate national support and funding mechanisms, and geopolitical dynamics at the macro-level (Bond et al., 2021; Pinho & Reeves, 2021).  Further, these constraints are not limited to the macro-level dynamics, including institutional and individual barriers, which hinder researchers’ participation and engagement in the international science system. The government’s endeavor on this could not be attained without building the capacity of researchers by identifying and addressing the necessary skills, the required resources, and institutional and individual obstacles at multiple levels. The existing scholarship on IRC (e.g., Dusdal & Powell, 2021; Pinho & Reeves, 2021; Yao, 2021) draws attention to the interplay of complex dynamics at the macro, meso, and micro levels, which can act as either facilitators or inhibitors. In a similar vein, Bozeman and Boardman’s (2014) scientific and technical human capital (STHC) framework, highlights the importance of knowledge, skills, social bonds, and resources, accumulating through experience, education, and institutional support in realizing successful IRC. In this study, we argue that effective IRC in peripheral contexts requires aligning macro-level factors, institutional dynamics, and scientific and technical human capital. These dimensions are mutually inclusive and collectively determine the extent to which researchers can engage in meaningful IRC. Therefore, this study aims to understand the IRC experiences of researchers in a peripheral country like Türkiye and analyze how the macro-level and STHC interact to facilitate or hinder these experiences. 

This research is designed as a phenomenological study that aims to understand researchers' lived experiences in realizing IRC. For this purpose, we are currently collecting the data through in-depth interviews with a group of purposefully selected academics. The interview form was developed by the researchers depending on the initial findings of the systematic review of IRC. The interview protocol covered five dimensions related to demographics, the process of IRC, individual evaluation of IRC, barriers, facilitators, strategies, and the conceptualization of IRC. We utilized criterion and maximum variation sampling to reach out to participants. The ultimate criterion is selecting participants with IRC experience. We evaluated this criterion by previously visiting the curriculum vitae of participants. We used co-authored publications with an international researcher affiliated with an institution outside Türkiye and membership in international research groups or projects as proxies for IRC. As we aimed to involve information-rich participants with vivid experiences, we set having published a co-authored paper or being in a research group or the project within the last five years as the selection criteria as well. Following the results of the existing studies concerning the background of the researchers involved in IRC, we aimed to accomplish maximum variation in terms of gender, study abroad experience, and career stage and to ensure the representation of researchers from social sciences and humanities, physical sciences, and engineering disciplines. Based on these criteria, the data will be collected from 20 participants working at public universities in Türkiye. The inductive content analysis will be utilized to disclose patterns, themes, and categories (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) by categorizing the process into three stages: data reduction, data verification, and display procedures proposed by Miles and Huberman (1994).

The results are expected to suggest that the researchers in a periphery country construct IRC through personal commitment, motivation, and effort rather than institutional or national initiatives despite their strong pressure to internationalize in research. Further, it is the scientific and technical human capital of the researchers that facilitates the process of IRC, which was constructed through mentorship, networking, and the research institution’s capacity. On the other side, it is expected that locating in a peripheral country would be a constraint for researchers in forming and sustaining IRC.

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