Arab Spring’s impact on science through the lens of scholarly attention, funding, and migration
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21441718 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yasaman Asgari (0000-0002-5397-0778, University of Zurich, corresponding author), Hongyu Zhou (0009-0008-8810-9292, University of Cambridge), Özgür Kadir Özer (0000-0003-1218-4321, Middle East Technical University), Rezvaneh Rezapour (0000-0001-8185-4785, Drexel University), Mary Ellen Sloane (0000-0002-4102-3976, Middle Tennessee State University), Alain Bovet (0000-0003-3937-3704), Alexandre Bovet (University of Zurich, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 131 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 3741-3778 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Scientometrics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0138-9130 • E-ISSN: 1588-2861 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s11192-026-05615-z |
| OpenAlex | W7162757915 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 88 |
The 2010–2011 Arab Spring reverberated far beyond politics, reshaping how the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) is studied. Analyzing 3.6 million Scopus-indexed articles published between 2002 and 2019, we find that mentions of ten of these countries in titles or abstracts rose significantly after 2011 relative to the global baseline, with Egypt receiving the greatest attention in the region. We link this surge to two intertwined mechanisms: an increase in research funding directed to the MENA region and the emigration of researchers who continued publishing about their countries of origin. Our analysis reveals that Saudi Arabia has emerged as a regional hub for research on the target countries, providing funding and attracting scholars and thereby playing a significant role in shaping the scientific narrative on the region. These findings demonstrate how political upheaval can reshape global knowledge flows by altering who studies whom, with what resources, and in which disciplines
Emigration · Immigration · Middle East · Narrative · Politics · Publishing · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts · scientometrics and bibliometrics research · Socioeconomic Development in MENA
The Arab Winter
A Modern Approach to Regression with R
Opening Closed Regimes
A systematic analysis of performance measures for classification tasks
Constructing bibliometric networks
The role of the Internet and social networks in the arab uprisings an alternative to official press censorship
The value of research funding for knowledge creation and dissemination
The effects of war on Ukrainian research
Mapping inequities in global vaccine sentiment research
Who funds the production of globally visible research in the Global South
Return migration of German-affiliated researchers
International scientific collaboration of post-Soviet countries
Brain drain and brain gain in Russia
The influence of geopolitics on research activity and international collaboration in science
Scientific laws of research funding to support citations and diffusion of knowledge in life science
Arab Spring’s impact on science through the lens of scholarly attention, funding, and migration
Bibliometric maps and co-word analysis of the literature on international cooperation on migration
Dependency and neocolonialism in international research collaboration
Analyzing scientific mobility and collaboration in the Middle East and North Africa
Geopolitics of the New Middle East
Social Media and the Decision to Participate in Political Protest
Bombs, Brains, and Science
We need someone to deliver our voices’
Revisiting North-South Disparities in Naming Practices
Five-Star Humanitarianism? Navigating Gulf Aid in the Aftermath of the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Jordan
Academics in Exile
Homecoming After Brexit
Changing Funding Arrangements and the Production of Scientific Knowledge
Scientific Brain Drain and Human Capital Formation After the End of the Soviet Union
Political Science Scholarship on the Middle East
Data, measurement and empirical methods in the science of science
The latent structure of global scientific development
Putting knowledge in its place
Who frames the debate on the Arab uprisings? Analysis of Arabic, English, and French academic scholarship
Effect of the Arab Spring on Stabilization Capacity of the Mena Monarchies
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |