Scientific collaboration in indigenous knowledge in context: Insights from publication and co-publication network analysis

Scientific collaboration has been cited as a major stimulant in innovation and a major component for the development of indigenous technologies particularly in countries invested in rapid technological catch-up in East Asia and Southeast Asia. In this study, we assess the comparative advantage of the selected economies and employ a network perspective to drill down to the case study of indigenous knowledge, using the traditional medicine sector – a focus indigenous industry of several Asian economies – to understand how the State, Industry and Universities link to drive innovation in this growing field. From our selected economies in East Asia, we identified three network models that describe the outcomes of the innovation strategies in place, a network-based extension of previous studies. We examine publication output and co-publication network structures to investigate the comparative advantage and composition of the research networks in the various economies. Our results suggest that the university-centric model remains the most popular, with Hong Kong appearing to attain the most functional innovation system with a competitive selection environment and high comparative advantage in this field. We propose this methodology as a means to explore the scientific infrastructure of a specific sector, thereby acting as a precursor to forecasting potential technological spill-over and growth in specific sectors.