Can first or last name uniqueness help to identify diaspora researchers from any country?

Abstract

Diaspora researchers work in one country but have ancestral origins in another, either through moves during a research career (mobile diaspora researchers) or by starting research in the target country (embedded diaspora researchers). Whilst mobile researchers might be tracked through affiliation changes in bibliometric databases, embedded researchers cannot. This article reports an evidence-based discussion of which countries’ diaspora researchers can be partially tracked using first or last names, addressing this limitation.

Keywords

• first name
• given name
• last name
• family name
• author nationality
• researcher mobility
• diaspora researchers