Sterke groei Turkije in kennistop

The Royal Society laat zien hoe de kenniswereld fundamenteel aan het veranderen is. Nederland handhaaft zich in de top 10 van ‘wetenschapslanden’, maar de opmars van naties als India, Turkije en Iran is opmerkelijk. China is inmiddels Japan voorbij als nummer 2, stelt de Britse KNAW vast in fascinerende nieuwe cijfers.
A 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 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 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. 
Nederland in top 10
Als het gaat om de wetenschappelijke productie en de intensiteit van de verwijzingen daarnaar is Nederland nog altijd een toonaangevend land. In de berekeningen van de Royal Society is te zien dat ons land zelfs licht stijgt, maar door de opmars van China in de top 10 een plaats moest toegeven in de ranking. Nederland blijft niettemin boven landen als Australië, Zwitserland en de Scandinavische kennisnaties presteren. 
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 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 2004-2008.  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%.
Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smithzat de Advisory Group voor deze studie vor en licht toe: “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.”
Steeds grotere globalisering
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 2004-2008.  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 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:
•             Turkey has improved its scientific performance at a rate to almost rival China – the R&D spend has been increased nearly six-fold between 1995 and 2007, during which time the number of researchers increased by 43%.  Four times as many papers with Turkish authors were published in 2008 as in 1996. 
•             Iran is the fastest growing country in terms of numbers of scientific publications in the world, growing from just 736 in 1996 to 13,238 in 2008.  The Government is committed to a “comprehensive plan for science”, including boosting R&D investment to 4% of GDP by 2030 (it stood at just 0.59% of GDP in 2006).
•             Tunisia has increased the percentage of its GDP spent on R&D from 0.03% in 1996 to 1.25% in 2009, whilst restructuring its national R&D system to create 624 research units and 139 research laboratories.
•             Singapore has almost doubled its R&D spend between 1996 and 2007 (from 1.37% to 2.61% of GDP), whilst more than tripling (from 2620 to 8506) its scientific publications between 1996 and 2008. 
Gelet op de recente omwentelingen en protesten in de Arabische wereld en in Iran is het zeer interessant na te denken over de relaties tussen de snelle opkomst van zulke naties en regio’s als kennissamenlevingen -ook door de demografische omstandigheden- en de rol die jonge, hoog opgeleide en ’tech-slimme’ mensen spelen in deze veranderingen.
Intensiteit van samenwerking groeit
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.
Llewellyn zegt hier over: “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.”
Bron: http://www.scienceguide.nl/201103/nederland-overeind-in-kennistop.aspx?rss=1