Scientific collaboration and high-technology exchanges among BRICS and G-7 countries

Over the last two decades, emerging countries located outside North America and Europe have reshaped the global economy. These countries are also increasing their share of the world’s scientific output. This paper analyzes the evolution of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and G-7 countries’ international scientific collaboration, and compares it with high-technology economic exchanges between 1995–1997 and 2010–2012. Our results show that BRICS scientific activities are enhanced by their high-technology exports and, to a larger extent, by their international collaboration with G-7 countries which remains, over the period studied, at the core of the BRICS scientific collaboration network. However, while high-technology exports made by most BRICS countries to G-7 countries have increased over the studied period, both the intra-BRICS high-technology flows and the intra-BRICS scientific collaboration have remained very weak

The effect of data sources on the measurement of open access : a comparison of Dimensions and the Web of Science

With the growing number of open access (OA) mandates, the accurate measurement of OA publishing is an important policy issue. Existing studies have provided estimates of the prevalence of OA publications ranging from 27.9% to 53.7%, depending on the data source and period of investigation. This paper aims at providing a comparison of the proportion of OA publishing as represented in two major bibliometric databases, Web of Science (WoS) and Dimensions, and assesses how the choice of database affects the measurement of OA across different countries. Results show that a higher proportion of publications indexed in Dimensions are OA than those indexed by WoS, and that this is particularly true for publications originating from outside North America and Europe. The paper concludes with a discussion of the cause and consequences of these differences, motivating the use of more inclusive databases when examining OA, especially for publications originating beyond North America and Europe

The competitive advantage of nations: an application to academia

Within the field of bibliometrics, there is sustained interest in how nations “compete” in terms of academic disciplines, and what determinants explain why countries may have a specific advantage in one discipline over another. However, this literature has not, to date, presented a comprehensive structured model that could be used in the interpretation of a country’s research profile and academic output. In this paper, we use frameworks from international business and economics to present such a model. Our study makes four major contributions. First, we include a very wide range of countries and disciplines, explicitly including the Social Sciences, which unfortunately are excluded in most bibliometrics studies. Second, we apply theories of revealed comparative advantage and the competitive advantage of nations to academic disciplines. Third, we cluster our 34 countries into five different groups that have distinct combinations of revealed comparative advantage in five major disciplines. Finally, based on our empirical work and prior literature, we present an academic diamond that details factors likely to explain a country’s research profile and competitiveness in certain disciplines

Are there global shifts in the world science base? Analysing the catching up and falling behind of world regions

This paper explores the changing role of world regions (North America, EU15, South EU, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), Former-USSR, Latin America, Asia Pacific and the Middle East) in science from 1981 to 2011. We use bibliometric data extracted from Thomson Reuter’s National Science Indicators (2011) for 21 broad disciplines, and aggregated the data into the four major science areas: life, fundamental, applied and social sciences. Comparing three sub-periods (1981–1989, 1990–2000 and 2001–2011), we investigate (i) over time changes in descriptive indicators such as publications, citations, and relative impact; (ii) static specialization measured by revealed comparative advantage (RCA) in citations and papers; and (iii) dynamic specialization measured by absolute growth in papers. Descriptive results show a global shift in science largely in quantity (papers) and much less in impact (citations). We argue this should be interpreted as a shift in science’s absorptive capacity but not necessarily a shift of knowledge generation at the world science frontier, which reflects the nature of science systems operating with high inertia and path dependency in areas of their historically inherited advantages and disadvantages. In view of their common historical legacy in science we are particularly interested in the process of convergence/divergence of the catching-up/transition regions with the world frontier regions. We implement an interpretative framework to compare regions in terms of their static and dynamic specialization from 1981–1989 to 2001–2011. Again, our analysis shows that while science systems are mostly characterised by strong inertia and historically inherited (dis)advantages, Asia Pacific, Latin America and CEE show strong catching-up characteristics but largely in the absorptive capacity of science

Worldwide bilateral geopolitical interactions network inferred from national disciplinary profiles

A disciplinary profile of a country is defined as the versor whose components are the number of papers produced in a given discipline divided by the overall production of the country. Starting from the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) schema of classification of subject areas, we obtained the yearly disciplinary profiles of a worldwide graph, where on each node sits a country, in the two time intervals 1988-1988 and 1992-2017, the fall of the Berlin Wall being the watershed. We analyze the empirical pairwise cross-correlation matrices of the time series of disciplinary profiles. The contrast with random matrix theory proves that, beyond measurement noise, the empirical cross-correlation matrices bring genuine information. Arising from the Shannon theorem as the least-structured model consistent with the measured pairwise correlations, the stationary probability distribution of disciplinary profiles can be described by a Boltzmann distribution related to a generalized n(d)-dimensional Heisenberg model. The set of network interactions of the Heisenberg model has been inferred and to it, two clusterization methods, hierarchical clustering, and principal component analysis have been applied. This allows obtaining a characterization of the worldwide bilateral interactions based on physical modeling. A simple geopolitical analysis reveals the consistency of the results obtained and gives a boost to a deeper historical analysis. In order to obtain the optimal set of pairwise interactions, we used a pseudolikelihood approach. We analytically computed the pseudolikelihood and its gradient. The analytical computations deserve interest in whatever inference Bayesian problem involving an n(d)-dimensional Heisenberg model

Dinámica de la especialización científica: ¿América Latina, dinamismo y convergencia a la frontera o inercia sin visibilidad?

A considerable number of papers show that mature scientific systems have inert profiles, while developing systems, particularly in Asia and Latin America, show dynamic profiles with rapid changes in specialization. This paper shows that this view of the dynamism in specialization profiles is, at least, biased. Indeed, the measure of distance used to calculate structural changes in scientific specialization is strongly influenced by the volume of scientific publications. Once the bias due to volume has been eliminated, the view of the dynamics in specialization changes radically. Some countries with mature systems appear strongly dynamic while Latin American countries are inert. Excessive flexibility (strong structural change) could be detrimental to the continuity of programs and therefore to the achievement of the objectives set, but excessive rigidity could also mean that inertia could be detrimental to the demands of the scientific system itself, to societal demands and to new opportunities. On the contrary, inertia could also be a strength, if it contributes to displace the frontier of knowledge in the area of specialization. The paper measures international visibility as an indicator of the performance of systems (inert or with major radical changes in specialization), and concludes that Latin America (and particularly the large countries of the region, Argentina and Mexico) are not only strongly inert, but also have very little international visibility (Argentina, Brazil and Mexico).Un cierto número de trabajos muestran que los sistemas científicos maduros presentan perfiles extremadamente inertes mientras que sistemas científicos en desarrollo, particularmente de Asia y América Latina muestran perfiles muy dinámicos con cambios rápidos de especialización. El presente trabajo muestra que esta visión del dinamismo en los perfiles de especialización es, por lo menos, sesgada. En efecto, la medida de la distancia utilizada para calcular los cambios estructurales en la especialización científica está fuertemente influenciada por el volumen de publicaciones científicas. Una vez eliminado el sesgo debido al volumen, la visión de la dinámica en la especialización cambia radicalmente. Algunos países con sistemas maduros aparecen fuertemente dinámicos mientras que los países de América Latina se revelan inertes (con la excepción del Brasil). Una flexibilidad excesiva (cambio estructural fuerte) podría ser perjudicial para la continuidad de los programas y, por lo tanto, para el logro de los objetivos fijados, pero también la rigidez excesiva podría significar que la inercia resultaría en detrimento de exigencias del propio sistema científico, de las demandas societales y de nuevas oportunidades. Al contrario, la inercia también puede constituir una fortaleza, si contribuye a desplazar la frontera del conocimiento en el área de especialización. El trabajo mide la visibilidad internacional, como indicador de la performance de los sistemas (inertes o con cambios radicales importantes de especialización), y concluye que América Latina (y muy particularmente los grandes países de la región, Argentina y México) no solo son fuertemente inertes, sino que presentan una muy escasa visibilidad internacional (Argentina, Brasil y México)

Research emphasis and collaboration in Africa

Scientific co-authorship of African researchers has become a fashionable topic in the recent scientometric literature. Researchers are investigating the effects, modes, dynamics and motives of collaboration in a continental research system which is in an embryonic stage and in different stages of development from country to country. In this article we attempt to provide some additional evidence by examining both patterns of collaboration at country and continental levels and the scientific disciplines emphasised. Our findings indicate that the continent’s research emphasises medical and natural resources disciplines to the detriment of disciplines supporting knowledge based economies and societies. Furthermore, we identify that the collaborative patterns in Africa are substantial higher than in the rest of the world. A number of questions related to research collaboration and its effects are raised.http://link.springer.com/journal/11192hb2017Institute for Technological Innovation (ITI