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China 'to overtake US on science' in two years
David Shukman
Science and environment correspondent, BBC News
China is on course to overtake the US in scientific output possibly as soon as 2013 - far earlier than expected.
That is the conclusion of a major new study by the Royal Society, the UK's national science academy.
The country that invented the compass, gunpowder, paper and printing is set for a globally important comeback.
An analysis of published research - one of the key measures of scientific effort - reveals an "especially striking" rise by Chinese science.
The study, Knowledge, Networks and Nations, charts the challenge to the traditional dominance of the United States, Europe and Japan.
The figures are based on the papers published in recognised international journals listed by the Scopus service of the publishers Elsevier.
In 1996, the first year of the analysis, the US published 292,513 papers - more than 10 times China's 25,474.
By 2008, the US total had increased very slightly to 316,317 while China's had surged more than seven-fold to 184,080.
Previous estimates for the rate of expansion of Chinese science had suggested that China might overtake the US sometime after 2020.
But this study shows that China, after displacing the UK as the world's second leading producer of research, could go on to overtake America in as little as two years' time.
"Projections vary, but a simple linear interpretation of Elsevier's publishing data suggests that this could take place as early as 2013," it says.
Story continued.....http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12885271
12 comments:
Papers? What do papers have to do with "science". This is an ivory tower myth.
Published research is obviously an extremely important metric in science. Only in in respected peer-reviewed journals and only if later cited (citation index). We'll see how that goes. It is not an "ivory tower myth" and only a non-scientist, or a failed scientist, or a government scientist working on non-publishable research would think so.
Who are the customers for papers?
Why should the taxpayer pay for papers?
Who are the customers for papers?
Why should the taxpayer pay for papers?
April 2, 2011 11:26 AM
The customers are other scientists, world-wide.
The cost of publishing results is usually minuscule compared to other costs for a project. There is no point in doing science if the results are not disseminated. If results are not available to other scientists, it is the same as if the research were never done.
I talked to my Congressman's (Garamendi) office about the situation with science in the US.
The response I got back was essentially, "it's ok, the Chinese papers are not as good as ours" (which is not actually true, at least the ones I review in my area are very good) and that the best thing he could think of for me to do was go to schools and talk to students about careers in science.
Washington is a very strange place.
"The customers are other scientists"
That is my point, why should the tax-payer pay for this stuff. If other scientists think papers are of value than they should pay for them. Customers pay for things they do not have the tax-payer pay it for them.
"only a non-scientist, or a failed scientist, or a government scientist working on non-publishable research would think so."
Who are you to say that someone is a failed scientist? Your shot at government scientists is uncalled for and just shows how arrogant you seem to the rest of the world. See how your attitude goes over in the new labs. If "papers" are so valuable than places look Microsoft, Google, HP or Wall Street firms would be writing them. At universities the "perception" is that the value of the institute is correlated with the number of "papers" that professors at these places
write. In this case the customers are the students. In the real world results count, not perceptions and not papers. Where do think your computer comes from, your airplane, GPS, cell phone, the internet, disk players, and your car. These things did not come from "papers".
Where do think your computer comes from, your airplane, GPS, cell phone, the internet, disk players, and your car. These things did not come from "papers".
April 2, 2011 10:29 PM
Your ignorance about how science is done is astounding. Of course the scientific discoveries that enabled the engineering development of those things were published in peer-reviewed scientific journals (i.e., "papers"). Tell us how you think scientists should learn about what other scientists have done?
In our hyper-corporatist American world, most important and economically viable scientific discoveries are now classified as "corporate proprietary information" and kept under raps. No papers are issued.
Sorta like how LANS keeps our critical executive salaries from the public and hides details about how Bechtel is bleeding the NNSA labs of good science in exchange for construction management dollars.
China and their open research are the future of "good science". America has forgotten what made us great. Our corrupt political system is bought and paid for by the corporate lobbyists.
I just hope that as China emerges as a world power as the result of the hard work of its people, that they are welcomed into prominent world leadership as the US was (for the most part) during and after WWI.
The counterpoint is resistance of the British empire to the emergence of the German people into world prominence during the Edwardian period at the beginning of the 20th century. The national competition lead to repeated disasters, and the dissipation of Europe for fifty years.
I hope we learn something from history.
From my vantage point it's, "Well done and welcome aboard; the hard part is just beginning. It's good to have a capable partner."
I just hope [a democratic] China emerges as a world power as the result of the hard work of its people.
In our hyper-corporatist American world, most important and economically viable scientific discoveries are now classified as "corporate proprietary information" and kept under raps. No papers are issued.
April 3, 2011 12:03 PM
If you believe that, why would you work in the corporate world, as opposed to at a university? Money? Benefits? Well that would explain it all, and explain why you don't state that at LANL or LLNL, publishable research is strongly encouraged and rewarded, which it is. LANS and LLNS have almost never (I'm sure you will provide a counter-example) discouraged publication of serious unclassified scientific results.
If you believe that, why would you work in the corporate world, as opposed to at a university? Money? "Benefits? Well that would explain it all, and explain why you don't state that at LANL or LLNL, publishable research is strongly encouraged and rewarded, which it is. LANS and LLNS have almost never (I'm sure you will provide a counter-example) discouraged publication of serious unclassified scientific results.
April 3, 2011 8:43 PM"
LANS and LLNLS may not discourage publication but they do sure do not encourage it either.
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