Do Scientists with Foreign Names Improve European Medical Research? A Preliminary Study of a New Methodology

The UK’s recent departure from the European Union may make it harder for researchers from other countries to be employed here and may discourage research institutions from seeking them. We sought to develop a methodology to see if non-native heritage scientists (with foreign names) brought measurable benefit to their host countries’ research. We selected two European countries, Sweden and Italy, and two medical subject areas (cancer and diabetes). We studied research papers from the Web of Science for 2009 15. We compared the citations received and journal impact factors (JIFs) for papers with different combinations of nationality (other Western Europe, Rest of the World) based on the researchers’ given names and surnames, using the OriginsInfo Ltd database to identify their cultural heritage and sex. Sweden had more international papers, and more foreign-name researchers, than Italy. Citations and journal impact factors were higher for both countries’ domestic papers when the diversity of their researchers’ names was greater, especially for Sweden. An analysis of the effects of varied name-nationality on individual papers gave inconclusive results. We developed a methodology that could be used to determine the contributions of foreign-name researchers and women to the impact of European medical research papers and to their subject matter. More in-depth analysis is needed to discover how this is taking place.