Mobility footprints: A notation method for studying researcher moves

In this paper we propose a framework for notating and organizing the various mobility events that can be deduced from bibliometric affiliation data. This approach allows for the large-scale analysis of researcher mobility at the level of researcher addresses and is more versatile than previous attempts. It is an important step towards indicators of researcher in- and outflows and of residing researchers, with researchers including any kind of publishing author.

Limitations of this approach can be the completeness of the database used and the quality of the disambiguation of authors. Also, mobility can only be captured for those researchers who have actually been active as authors.

Next, we will apply the method to Microsoft Academic Graph data, convert affiliation information into footprints, and create and calculate indicators to map global researcher mobility. Alongside this, we plan to share the SQL-code for the creation of the footprints and indicators, as well as the in- and output data, to allow the application of this method for anyone. Future studies may go beyond the researcher-country combination and include other entities: research organizations, geographical regions, or even journals and fields of science.