The NSF just released two interesting reports. Changing US Output of Scientific Articles:1988-2003 is a detailed analysis of publications in refereed journals over that time period. The companion publication, Changing Research and Publication Environment in American Research Universities, is based on interviews with scientists in 9 leading US research universities.
The first report extends and quantifies the well known result that the American share of international research publications has been dropping over time as other countries build their scientific and engineering capabilities. More importantly, it also shows the very surprising result that the absolute number of US scientific publications in peer reviewed journals has plateaued or dropped since the early 1990s. The second report seeks to understand that flattening of US research output.
In terms of the US share of scientific articles, the European Union (EU-15) passed the US in 1998 in total number of articles, and then flattened out in growth somewhat. What NSF calls the East Asia -4 ( China, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) has shown the most robust growth in number of articles over this period (16% per year), and equaled Japan in number of articles by 2003.
The NSF also looked at “highly influential” publications - those in the top 5% in number of citations, by field. Here the US continues to “outperform”: in all fields, more that 5% of the highly influential papers had US authors. However, in almost all fields, the percentage of highly influential papers with US authors has shrunk since the 1990s, indicating growth in quality as well as quantity of the scientific work being done outside of the US . Nevertheless, in 2003 roughly 50% of the highly influential papers show American authorship, with the EU-15 a distant second with about 30%.
Although the metrics indicating global coauthorship are rather course, there is clear indication of increasing international collaboration in all fields of science. In fact, the NSF concludes that the US held up as well as it did in the “highly influential” contest because it increased its participation in international collaboration.
The quite unexpected result that emerges from the present NSF analysis of the data, however, is that the absolute number of US scientific publications in peer review journals has plateaued, and in some fields, dropped since the early 1990s. The report shows that this happened despite increases in resources and personnel over the same time period. The second report, which involved interviews with researchers, was undertaken in an effort to understand this result.
This second report suggests several possible reasons for the flattening of research papers. Among these is the often heard complaint that grant writing and the increasing reporting requirements of the government are taking valuable time away from research. A much more interesting suggestion is that more collaborative research is being done in what NSF designates as the “integrative”mode:
At the other pole are collaborations among researchers with fundamentally different perspectives who need a common understanding of the issues that their work will address and cannot divide their joint work into discrete pieces that individual scientists can handle autonomously. These collaborations involve extensive discussion among cooperating researchers and can transform the way individual researchers approach the problems they study.
Such research naturally requires more time to carry out than individual research or more traditional collaborations among partners with complementary skills, data, etc.
All very interesting and useful information for those interested in following the US competitive position in science and technology. This report shows the US continues to hold a significant lead in science and technology, but the competition is rapidly increasing in number and quality of publications.
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