Abstract
<p>This study examines why some internationally mobile researchers continue to collaborate with their academic country of origin after moving abroad, while others do not. Based on a comprehensive dataset of scientific publications indexed in the Dimensions, we identify 663,802 internationally mobile researchers who first appeared in the publication record between 1990 and 2020. We examine three dimensions of pre-mobility origin-related collaboration: persistent origin ties, internationally connected origin-country coauthors, and origin collaboration concentration. The results show that all three dimensions are positively associated with continued origin collaboration after mobility. Among them, internationally connected origin-country coauthors show the strongest association, suggesting that origin collaborators with international experience may serve as important bridges between mobile researchers and their academic origins. The associations also vary across origin-country development levels, mobility directions, return status, and scientific fields. These results show that post-mobility collaboration with country of origin is closely related to the collaboration structures researchers formed before mobility, rather than being simply a result of mobility itself or individual productivity.</p>