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2011-03-28-Knowledge-networks-nations.pdf |
New countries emerge as major players in scientific world 28 March 2011A new group of countries, lead by China and followed by others including Brazil and India, are emerging as major scientific powers to rival the traditional “scientific superpowers” of the US, Western Europe and Japan , a new report from the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of science, has found. The report also identified some rapidly emerging scientific nations not traditionally associated with a strong science base, including Iran, Tunisia and Turkey. The report emphasised the growing importance of international collaboration in the conduct and impact of global science and its ability to solve global challenges such as energy security, climate change and biodiversity loss. The report, Knowledge, Networks and Nations: Global scientific collaboration in the 21st century, analysed a wide variety of data, including trends in the number of scientific publications produced by all countries. It found that China’s growing share in the total number of articles published globally is now second only to the long-time scientific world leader, the United States. Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith FRS, Chair of the Advisory Group for the study, said: “The scientific world is changing and new players are fast appearing. Beyond the emergence of China, we see the rise of South-East Asian, Middle Eastern, North African and other nations. The increase in scientific research and collaboration, which can help us to find solutions to the global challenges we now face, is very welcome. However, no historically dominant nation can afford to rest on its laurels if it wants to retain the competitive economic advantage that being a scientific leader brings.” The publication data analysed by the report showed changes in the share of the world’s authorship of research papers between the periods 1993-2003 and 2004-20082. Although the USA still leads the world, its share of global authorship has fallen from 26% to 21%. China has risen from sixth to second place, with its share of authorship rising from 4.4% to 10.2%. The UK remains stable in the rankings at third place, although its share of authorship has fallen slightly from 7.1% to 6.5%. The Royal Society report also analysed citation data (records of the levels at which researchers are citing each others’ work in their research). Citations are often used as a means of evaluating the quality of publications, as recognition by an author’s peers indicates that the scientific community value the work that has been published. In both time periods, the US leads the ranking, with the UK in second place. However, both have a reduced share of global citations in 2004-2008, compared to 1999-2003. The rise of China is also shown in the data, although the rise does not mirror the rapidity of growth seen in the nation’s investment or publication output. The report found that science is becoming increasingly global, with research undertaken in more and more places and to a greater extent than ever before. In addition to the meteoric rise of China and, to a lesser extent, Brazil and India, the report also identified a number of other rapidly emerging scientific nations, including:
The report investigated global collaboration, finding that today over 35% of articles published in international journals are internationally collaborative, up from 25% just fifteen years ago. International collaboration is growing for a variety of reasons including, most importantly, a desire to work with the best people (who may be based in increasingly divergent locations) and the growing need to collaborate on global issues, as well as developments in communication technologies and cheaper travel. Beyond the intuitive benefits of international collaboration, the report illustrated a clear correlation between the number of citations per article and the number of collaborating countries (up to a tipping point of ten countries), illustrating the value of engaging in international collaboration in terms of increasing the impact of research. Finally, the report considered the role of international scientific collaboration in addressing some of the most pressing global challenges of our time, concentrating on the IPCC, CGIAR, the Gates Foundation, ITER and efforts to deploy carbon capture and storage technology. It looked at the strengths and shortcomings of these models to provide lessons for how international scientific collaboration might be better deployed in future. Professor Llewellyn Smith commented: “Global issues, such as climate change, potential pandemics, bio-diversity, and food, water and energy security, need global approaches. These challenges are interdependent and interrelated, with complicated dynamics that are often overlooked by policies and programmes put in place to address them. Science has a crucial role in identifying and analysing these challenges, and must be considered in parallel with social, economic and political perspectives to find solutions.” Publication and citation data for the report was produced by and analysed in collaboration with scientific publisher Elsevier using Scopus citation and abstract data of global peer-reviewed literature. 英国皇家学会前日发布报告说,一些新兴国家在全球科研产出中所占比重在不断上升,尤其是中国的科研论文数量已跃居全球第二,虽其引用率与数量增长尚不同步,但有明显进步。 这份报告名为《知识、网络和国家:21世纪的全球科研合作》,是英国皇家学会与总部设在荷兰阿姆斯特丹的科技信息出版公司爱思唯尔(Elsevier)合作,对近年来全球各国发表科研论文等情况的调查结果。它主要比较了1999年到2003年,和2004年到2008年两个时间段的情况。其结果显示,以中国为代表的新兴国家正在挑战美国、西欧和日本在科研领域的优势地位。 在科研论文数量上,美国仍是全球第一,但所占比重已有所下降,而中国所占比重从4.4%上升到10.2%,按比重排序的位置从第六上升至第二,超过英国、日本、德国、法国等传统科研强国。 在可反映科研论文质量的引用率上,中国也有进步,占全球科研论文引用率的比重从十位以外上升到第七位。不过报告也指出,中国科研论文的引用率增长幅度暂时还没跟上论文数量的增长幅度。 除中国、印度、巴西等新兴国家的科研影响力日益增大外,还有一些国家也表现抢眼,如土耳其的科研投入在1995年到2007年间增加了6倍,伊朗从1996年到2008年的科研论文数量更是从几百篇上升到一万多篇,突尼斯、新加坡、卡塔尔等国的科研投入或产出也都有大幅增长。 英国皇家学会会员、编撰该报告的咨询小组主席克里斯·卢埃林·史密斯说:“科研世界正在发生变化,中国以及东南亚、中东和北非的一些国家正在兴起。”他说,传统科研强国如果不继续努力,将很难保持其优势地位。 这份报告还显示,科研领域的国际合作在增强:通过国际合作完成的科研论文占总体的比例从25%上升到35%,且这类论文通常引用率更高,即影响力往往更大。 |
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