Australia punching well above its weight in international research

Data released this week by Thomson Scientific, the global scientific community’s chief reference point for measuring research performance, show that on a per capita basis, Australia and Canada are neck and neck in leading the world in research publication output.

While the US blitzes everyone with number of papers published (3.7 times more than the second highest volume nation, Japan), when adjusted for population, the US slips to fourth, being 21% less productive than Australia and Canada on a per capita basis.

Table 1: QUANTITY: Country Total Research Papers (all fields), 1996-2006

The key measure of research quality is the number of times other researchers cite a paper. Well over half of all papers published are never cited by anyone. Table 2 shows that the US blitzes the field in having more than 5.4 times as many papers in the “top 1% most cited” list, and keeps its lead when adjustment is made for population size. Australia ranks seventh in the number of papers in the top 1%, but moves to fourth when adjusted for population size.

Table 2: QUALITY: Papers per country in top 1% most cited

Calculated from Thomson scientific figures and 2005 population data here.