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Book part
Publication date: 1 September 2017

Iris A. Mihai and Robert D. Reisz

The authors seek to better understand the relationships between science production, national wealth, inequality, and human development around the globe.

Abstract

Purpose

The authors seek to better understand the relationships between science production, national wealth, inequality, and human development around the globe.

Design

The chapter uses econometric models, including Granger causality, to test alternate hypotheses about whether more economic wealth is related to more science or if more science leads to more wealth.

Findings

The immediate result of our models is that a country’s wealth contributes to the conditions necessary for productive science. While large countries produce many research articles in the STEM+ fields more or less irrespective of their per capita GDP, with countries like the Soviet Union, China, or India being important contributors to world science, the most productive countries were the richer ones. GDP per capita values are important predictors for higher numbers of STEM+ research articles adjusted for population size. Nevertheless, human development and income equality also have a positive relationship with science productivity. While the effect of income equality is less strong, it has importantly and steadily increased over the last 50 years.

Originality/Value

This chapter is among the first to show that countries with similar levels of human development that are more equal in income distribution are more productive in science, while countries of similar wealth that are more equal in income distribution are not necessarily more productive in science.

Details

The Century of Science
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-469-9

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 1 January 2006

K. Brock Enger

Using bibliometrics to examine eight core journals in the year 2000 for the disciplines of higher education and library science, characteristics of the authors were determined…

Abstract

Using bibliometrics to examine eight core journals in the year 2000 for the disciplines of higher education and library science, characteristics of the authors were determined, including gender or sex; Carnegie Classification or institutional affiliation; and position of the authors. Characteristics of the articles were also examined, including the research methods used such as descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, or qualitative analysis. A content analysis of each article was performed to determine the subjects discussed in each literature. For both disciplines, it was learned that males publish more, the highest Carnegie Classification, extensive research institutions, were represented the most, and authors came from academic departments other than their own disciplines. In higher education, inferential statistics were used frequently; in library and information descriptive statistics were used frequently; both disciplines failed to use research methodologies regularly. From these findings, it appears that both disciplines are still emerging and are in their early stages of development.

Details

Advances in Library Administration and Organization
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-7623-1410-2

Book part
Publication date: 1 September 2017

Justin J. W. Powell and Jennifer Dusdal

Growth in scientific production and productivity over the 20th century resulted significantly from three major countries in European science – France, Germany, and the United…

Abstract

Purpose

Growth in scientific production and productivity over the 20th century resulted significantly from three major countries in European science – France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Charting the development of universities and research institutes that bolster Europe’s key position in global science, we uncover both stable and dynamic patterns of productivity in the fields of STEM, including health, over the 20th century. Ongoing internationalization of higher education and science has been accompanied by increasing competition and collaboration. Despite policy goals to foster innovation and expand research capacity, policies cannot fully account for the differential growth of scientific productivity we chart from 1975 to 2010.

Approach and Research Design

Our sociological neo-institutional framework facilitates explanation of differences in institutional settings, organizational forms, and organizations that produce the most European research. We measure growth of published peer-reviewed articles indexed in Thomson Reuters’ Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE).

Findings

Organizational forms vary in their contributions, with universities accounting for nearly half but rising in France; ultrastable in Germany at four-fifths, and growing at around two-thirds in the United Kingdom. Differing institutionalization pathways created the conditions necessary for continuous, but varying growth in scientific production and productivity in the European center of global science. The research university is key in all three countries, and we identify organizations leading in research output.

Originality/value

Few studies explicitly compare across time, space, and different levels of analysis. We show how important European science has been to overall global science production and productivity. In-depth comparisons, especially the organizational fields and forms in which science is produced, are crucial if policy is to support research and development.

Details

The Century of Science
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-469-9

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 1 September 2017

Justin J. W. Powell, Frank Fernandez, John T. Crist, Jennifer Dusdal, Liang Zhang and David P. Baker

This chapter provides an overview of the findings and chapters of a thematic volume in the International Perspectives on Education and Society (IPES) series. It describes the…

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter provides an overview of the findings and chapters of a thematic volume in the International Perspectives on Education and Society (IPES) series. It describes the common dataset and methods used by an international research team.

Design/methodology/approach

The chapter synthesizes the results of a series of country-level case studies and cross-national and regional comparisons on the growth of scientific research from 1900 until 2011. Additionally, the chapter provides a quantitative analysis of global trends in scientific, peer-reviewed publishing over the same period.

Findings

The introduction identifies common themes that emerged across the case studies examined in-depth during the multi-year research project Science Productivity, Higher Education, Research and Development and the Knowledge Society (SPHERE). First, universities have long been and are increasingly the primary organizations in science production around the globe. Second, the chapters describe in-country and cross-country patterns of competition and collaboration in scientific publications. Third, the chapters describe the national policy environments and institutionalized organizational forms that foster scientific research.

Originality/value

The introduction reviews selected findings and limitations of previous bibliometric studies and explains that the chapters in the volume address these limitations by applying neo-institutional theoretical frameworks to analyze bibliometric data over an extensive period.

Abstract

Details

Communicating Research
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-799-8

Book part
Publication date: 1 September 2017

Kazunori Shima

This chapter describes the changing nature of Japanese science production. The author explains Japan’s rise to prominence as the country with the second largest number of annual…

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter describes the changing nature of Japanese science production. The author explains Japan’s rise to prominence as the country with the second largest number of annual research publications in the world, followed by its subsequent decline to fifth in the world. The chapter highlights implications for Japanese universities of shifts in research policy.

Design

The author examines bibliometric data as well as contextual data from Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to analyze the contributions of Japanese universities in STEM+ research from 1975 to 2010. The chapter examines changes in higher education funding policies and their relationship to university-based production of STEM+ research articles in recent decades. The chapter also includes brief comparative analyses with selected other countries, including highly productive countries in Asia (China, Korea, and Taiwan), Western Europe (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom), as well as the United States.

Findings

Bibliometric data show that Japan’s second-tier research universities contributed to Japan’s rise to the second largest producer of STEM+ scientific research. When these second-tier research universities received less money from the government, their scientific output declined and aggregate national research output declined relative to other countries.

Originality/value

The chapter uses more recent and comprehensive data than other studies of research output of Japanese universities and offers several implications for research policy and higher education funding. Indeed, the chapter argues that second-tier universities are the “unsung heroes” of Japanese science production. The chapter also suggests that Japanese policymakers may need to reconsider their reliance on competitive funding over block grants that sustain research universities.

Book part
Publication date: 1 September 2017

Frank Fernandez and David P. Baker

During the 20th century, the United States rapidly developed its research capacity by fostering a broad base of institutions of higher education led by a small core of highly…

Abstract

Purpose

During the 20th century, the United States rapidly developed its research capacity by fostering a broad base of institutions of higher education led by a small core of highly productive research universities. By the latter half of the century, scientists in a greatly expanded number of universities across the United States published the largest annual number of scholarly publications in STEM+ fields from one nation. This expansion was not a product of some science and higher education centralized plan, rather it flowed from the rise of mass tertiary education in this nation. Despite this unprecedented productivity, some scholars suggested that universities would cease to lead American scientific research. This chapter investigates the ways that the United States’ system of higher education underpinned American science into the 21st century.

Design

The authors present a historical and sociological case study of the development of the United States’ system of higher education and its associated research capacity. The historical and sociological context informs our analysis of data from the SPHERE team dataset, which was compiled from the Thomson Reuters’ Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) database.

Findings

We argue that American research capacity is a function of the United States’ broad base of thousands of public and broadly accessible institutions of higher education plus its smaller, elite sector of “super” research universities; and that the former serve to culturally support the later. Unlike previous research, we find that American higher education is not decreasing its contributions to the nation’s production of STEM+ scholarship.

Originality/Value

The chapter provides empirical analyses, which support previous sociological theory about mass higher education and super research universities.

Book part
Publication date: 1 September 2017

John T. Crist

Although its contributions to global science date from 1980, Qatar embarked on an ambitious plan in 2009 to position itself as an important hub for global research production…

Abstract

Purpose

Although its contributions to global science date from 1980, Qatar embarked on an ambitious plan in 2009 to position itself as an important hub for global research production. This paper assesses Qatar’s contribution over the past three decades to global research output and science productivity in STEM+ fields, as measured by scientific journal article production.

Design

The core of the analysis is based on a specially coded dataset of all peer-reviewed journal articles in the STEM+ disciplines with at least one author whose primary affiliation was a Qatar-based research organization. The original data source is Thomson Reuters’ Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE). Analyzing trends between 1980 (the first year in which a paper with a Qatar-based author appeared in these selected leading journals) and 2011, the chapter documents how scientific journal article production in Qatar has developed over three decades.

Findings

Between 1980 and 2002, rates of journal article production were relatively low. From 2003, reflecting considerable investments in higher education and research, the annual number of journal article publications increased dramatically. Most publications were authored by university-based scientists (58%) and scientists based at research hospitals or other medical research facilities (30%). By 2011, over 83% of scientific journal articles published with at least one Qatar-based author were the result of collaboration with international partners. European, North American, and Middle Eastern research scientists and organizations were the most common international collaborators.

Originality/value

This is the first comprehensive empirical study of Qatar’s contributions to global scientific production in the STEM+ disciplines.

Details

The Century of Science
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-469-9

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 1 December 2022

Huu Minh Nguyen, Thi Hong Tran and Thi Thanh Loan Tran

“The world needs science, science needs women” is the message given by UNESCO in the program for the development of women in science” (UNESCO, 2017). In Vietnam, women’s…

Abstract

“The world needs science, science needs women” is the message given by UNESCO in the program for the development of women in science” (UNESCO, 2017). In Vietnam, women’s participation and achievements in scientific research is considered a great and important resource for industrialization and modernization. Even so, are there gender differences in scientific achievement in the social science research institutes in Vietnam? What factors influence the scientific achievement of female social researchers? The answers will be based on data from a 2017 survey with a sample of 756 researchers, of which 77.6% were female. The survey was conducted by the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, a leading, ministry-level national center for the social sciences in Vietnam. This chapter analyzed the scientific achievements of researchers through their position as principal investigators of research projects and their publications, and factors that may impact this. Bivariate and multivariate analyses of factors that may affect the scientific achievement of researchers found that gender differences in academic achievement in the social sciences in Vietnam was still prevalent. Female researchers’ scientific achievements were lower than those of their male counterparts. The contribution to science of Vietnamese female researchers was limited by many different factors; the most important were the academic rank of the researchers and gender stereotype that considered housework the responsibility of women.

Details

Diversity and Discrimination in Research Organizations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-959-1

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 23 August 2017

Solveig Kirstine Bennike Bennedsen and Lærke Lissau Lund-Sørensen

In this chapter, we analyzed the effects of internationalization on innovation, productivity, and firm performance among multinational pharmaceutical companies as representatives…

Abstract

In this chapter, we analyzed the effects of internationalization on innovation, productivity, and firm performance among multinational pharmaceutical companies as representatives of a global knowledge-based industry. The empirical analysis used multiple stepwise regressions based on a sample of 149 firms headquartered in Europe and the US. The results indicate that innovation outcomes are positively correlated to the number of foreign subsidiaries (scope internationalization), whereas surprisingly, formal research and development (R&D) does not seem to directly influence innovation. This suggests that the firms benefit from local overseas subsidiaries to create and implement new innovative offerings. The number of foreign subsidiaries has a U-shaped relationship to patent productivity suggesting that firms can gain advantages by locating cost-intensive activities in low-cost countries and critical tasks in advanced market locations. Firm performance has a U-shaped relationship to sales abroad (scale internationalization) and the relationship is further enhanced by a high focus on R&D. This suggests that sales abroad enable scale economies, where R&D improves quality and relevance of products and thereby boosts performance. Finally, to validate the findings we conducted two semi-structured interviews with representative industry experts and gained further insights for an extended interpretation of results.

Details

The Responsive Global Organization
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-831-4

Keywords

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