Research Collaboration in China’s Higher Education: Global Trends, Individual Orientations, and Task Distributions

Anchored in a global–national systems framework, this study examines the patterns and mechanisms of research collaboration in China’s higher education (HE) in relation to global trends. A mixed-methods design is implemented, combining bibliometric analysis of 213,492 HE articles from Web of Science (WoS; 1991–2024) and a survey of 113 participants. Findings show that global HE collaboration is increasingly dispersed internationally and interregionally. China’s HE featured a high international collaboration share but saw a recent drop as domestic collaboration rose after 2020. The survey provides further insight into individual orientations and practices. While more senior researchers show a stronger preference for domestic collaboration over international collaboration, recent cohorts demonstrate a more balanced orientation. Domestic collaborations depend more on direct initiation pathways, while international collaborations resort more to indirect encounters. A typology of four modes of task distribution is derived: (1) early-stage collaboration, (2) framework-guided analysis, (3) conceptual-paper refinement and (4) late-stage revision, with researchers more frequently entering collaboration at early stages of the research process. Overall, the findings suggest that while the global space continues to draw new entrants into an increasingly open and dispersed collaboration network, research collaboration remains structurally anchored in national systems and practically shaped by individual researchers.