Limitations
Although the data used to support these conclusions
are reliable and have been obtained showing a clearer
indication than that achieved by Fontes [15], our study
has the limitation of having been conducted on a small
number of Spanish researchers in the health sciences.
Future studies will extend this number to ratify the validity
of these results.
Most of the participants in this study have postdoctoral
or lower job positions, with less freedom to establish
the desired collaborations than other top positions.
In addition, in this study, it was necessary to collect data
from Spanish scientists by associations abroad due to
the lack of knowledge of the total population of these
Spanish researchers abroad. Therefore, the obtained
results do not generalize to the entire collective. Similarly,
this study shows the collaboration in a given
moment of time, but not its evolution. For this reason, it
is our intention to extend it with a longitudinal design in
future works.