The Impact of International Research Collaboration on the Quality of Scholarly Output of Tehran University of Medical Sciences

International collaboration is beneficial for both researchers and institutions and enhances the quality of research output. The present study therefore sought to: 1- investigate the quality of scientific outputs of Tehran University of Medical Sciences produced through international collaboration, and 2- ascertain the most collaborative countries and institutions of the same university.
This applied study was conducted using scientometric indicators. A total of 17763 papers published by researchers affiliated with Tehran University of Medical Sciences and indexed in the Scopus database from 2011 to 2015 were selected. In addition to Scopus, SciVal was also utilized for the analysis and geographic visualization of data.
According to the findings only 16.9% of the total scientific output of Tehran University of Medical Sciences was co-authored with researchers from 1281 foreign institutions. However, multi-country publications on average, have received more citations per paper, have been viewed more, and published in top journals, in fact they have higher chance to get citations and become highly cited papers. These papers had higher field-weighted citation impact compared with other publications with the same subjects.
Considering the scientific position and research capabilities of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, the expansion of research collaboration with leading universities in the world would be effective in increasing the quality and impact of scientific output and promoting the status of the university in international university ranking systems.