There is a tendency to conceptualize Internationalization in Higher Education (IHE) as a matter of student mobility. However, research in and out of the academy forms a wide space of international collaboration. Research collaboration between academics as a growing phenomenon has attracted the attention of higher education researchers and policymakers around the world (Ponds, 2009; Menash & Enu-Kwesi, 2018). The literature documents various rationales for International Research Collaboration (IRC) that are operating at the micro (individual researchers), meso (institutional/university), and macro (country/national) levels. From a micro perspective, international collaboration in research is inevitable for academics because of various reasons such as accomplishing a wider impact on their research output, improving the quality of research outputs, widening the scope of their research, soliciting funds for research, benefiting from wider research infrastructures, and joining research networks (Finkelstein, Walker, and Chen (2013; Hoekman et al., 2010; Kyvik and Larsen 1994; Ponds, 2009; Shehatta & Mahmood, 2016). From the meso (institutional/university) perspective international collaboration in research has become a strategic orientation for prominent universities around the world (Hovart, Weber & Wicki, 2000). Universities build a reputation and make themselves more visible on the international scene with the help of IRC. Finally, from the macro level (country/national) perspective non-science policy objectives such as improving national competitiveness, supporting less developed countries, tackling global challenges, and serving public diplomacy can also be aimed by IRC (Technolopolis Group, 2009). Kwiek (2018) stated that international collaboration in research is accepted as an indicator of a competitive economy. For many countries, IRC forms a critical input to building a knowledge-based economy (Horvath et al., 2000) as well as transforming higher education syst
