The European perspective on S&T indicators

The S&T indicators activity is first described as a complex process involving a variety of functions, capabilities and institutions; this provides a framework to assess the S&T indicators activity in a country or, more generally, in a research system. Then, the main features of the S&T indicators scene in Europe are presented: regarding the countries, the diversity of the institutional settings and the growing potentials is stressed; among countries, at European level, the important and original role of the European Commission in the dynamics of the S&T indicators activites in Europe is presented; finally, it is argued that the European scene consists of a diversity of research groups which are in competition and collaboration, sharing a number of intellectual concerns and orientations. The perspectives for S&T indicators activity in the EU countries are defined by the greater quantity of source data, by the conceptual advances regarding the S&T system and by the new needs of the decision-makers. In conclusion, some alternative scenarios are suggested.     

A fuzzy set theory approach to national composite S&;T indices

Summary Composite science and technology (S&T) indices are essential to overall understanding and evaluation of national S&T status, and to formulation of S&T policy. However, only a few studies on making these indices have been conducted so far since a number of complications and uncertainties are involved in the work. Therefore, this study proposes a new approach to employ fuzzy set theory and to make composite S&T indices, and applies it. The approach appears to successfully integrate various S&T indicators into three indices: R&D input, R&D output, and economic output. We also compare Koreas S&T indices with those of five developed countries (France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) to obtain some implications of the results for Koreas S&T.     

The use of S&T indicators in science policy: Dutch experiences and theoretical perspectives from policy analysis

The relation between bibliometrics and science policy remains underdeveloped. Relevance of new methods to produce indicators is easily claimed, but often without real insight in the policy processes. Drawing on experiences with the use of S&T indicators in science policy in the Netherlands and on principal-agent theory, I develop an analytical perspective which enbles to assess the role of S&T indicators in science policy. It is argue that the use of S&T indicators can only be understood well if one takes the socio-political context with its specific dynamics and rationalities into account.     

Measuring S&T activities in the Former Socialist Economies of Central and Eastern Europe: Conceptual and methodological issues in linking past with present

The economic and social transformation of countries of central and eastern Europe has deeply affected their S&T systems. However, conceptual and methodological problems in monitoring transformation of their S&T systems are not trivial. In this paper we analyse conceptual and methodological issues involved in measuring S&T activities in the socialist and post-socialist period across the most important S&T indicators (R&D, US and national patents; innovation surveys; bibliometrics). Our conclusions are that: i) the process of methodological harmonisation of S&T indicators has progressed considerably and we have provided some evidence in that respect; ii) the use of similar or identical indicators (business R&D, innovation counts, patents, citations) when making inter-country or inter-temporal comparisons should be approached with caution because of the significant differences between the socialist and post-socialist periods as well as between post-socialist R&D systems and R&D in other market economies. This latter applies especially to the interpretation of business R&D data in the post-socialist period. A first version of this paper was presented at the Conference on the implementation of OECD methodologies for R&D/S&T statistics in central and eastern European countries' which was held in Budapest from 6.–8. November 1996. Research which formed the basis for this paper was funded in case of one of the authors by the EC TSER programme. Correspondence should be addressed to: SlavoRadosevic, SPRU, University of Sussex, BN1 9RF, Brighton. We are grateful to SylvanKatz for stimulative discussions and to two anonymous referees for comments in revisions of this paper. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the organisations for which they work.     

Structural changes in S&T research in India

Before India became an independent country, its scientists and policy makers could foreseethe importance of science in its development, and accordingly a number of research anddevelopment (R&D) institutions were established. However during these five decades ofindependence, the choice between basic sciences and technology was always a subject of debate.It will be appropriate now to examine the changing patterns of Science and Technology (S&T)manpower growth to find out the ground truth reality. The present study pertains to the analysis ofS&T outturn data in various fields of scientific research that can provide a base for S&T planningand policy making. These S&T indicators will be helpful in estimating future requirements, whichin turn can be useful to a great extent in science and technology policy formulation. Theseestimates and future projections are based on mathematical modelling of the data pertaining to theoutturn of highly qualified Scientific and Technical (S&T) personnel in India from differentfaculties over the period 1990-1998. From the trend analysis it is evident that research is no moreperceived as an interesting career except in the field of engineering and medicine. The findingsfurther suggest that there is a noticeable shift from basic sciences to technology.     

The role and development of quantitative indicators for research and technology policy making: Some experience from the department of trade and industry

This article discusses quantitative S&T indicators from the perspective of their usefulness in bringing longer term considerations into policy making. A number of areas of current and future work by the Longer Term Studies Group of the Department of Trade and Industry are presented as illustrative cases. The main concern of the article, however, is to outline some of the main decisions facing S&T policy making, thereby setting the context for the development and use of quantitative indicators. It is suggested that the approach of considering longer term trends and developments in the context of present-day policy issues may well open new opportunities for the development of quantitative indicators. Above all a pragmatic approach is required, weighing up the value of an indicator with other sources of information in considering their relevance to the practical problems of policy making.Several colleagues gave helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. However, the paper represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of the DTI.     

Mapping of S&T issues in the Indian Parliament: A scientometric analysis of questions raised in both Houses of the Parliament

The Parliament, the highest legislative body in India, plays a significant role in formulating national policies. It is, therefore, pertinent to find the concern the Members of Parliament and different political parties show and the priorities they accord to the S&T related issues. They can judge it statistically through the number of questions raised/asked on the floor of the House. The study presents such an analysis taking the example from the S&T questions raised in the year 1992 during the Tenth Parliament. The analysis has been done by dividing the S&T related issues into 14 socio-economic areas, such as environmental sciences, biotechnology, energy, food and agriculture, health, natural resources, telecommunications, human resource development, etc. and eight policy areas such as technology policy, international collaborations in S&T, etc. The raising of S&T questions jointly by MPs and different political parties through inter-party and intra-party sponsorships has also been studied. Such an analysis may provide an important basis to the managers and policy makers in formulating the S&T policy of a country.     

Statistical profile of science and technology in India and Brazil

By making comparison of the science indicators, the author has critically examined the development of science and technology (S&T) in India and Brazil. The SWOT analysis indicate that, with the support of federal government, both of these developing countries have built capacities and capabilities in many areas of S&T towards attaining self-reliance and have developed potential to excel in the world-market and face challenges thereof. India and Brazil are continuing to make efforts for attaining the transition from a developing to a developed country and reviewing S&T policies towards achieving industrial competitiveness. The views expressed are the personal views of the author only.     

Matrices of science and technology interactions and patterns of structured growth: implications for development

Scientific and other non-patent references (NPRs) in patents are important tools to analyze interactions between science and technology. This paper organizes a database with 514,894 USPTO patents granted globally in 1974, 1982, 1990, 1998 and 2006. There are 165,762 patents with at least one reference to science and engineering (S&E) literature, from a total of 1,375,503 references. Through a lexical analysis, 71.1% of this S&E literature is classified by S&E fields. These data serve as the basis for the elaboration of global and national 3-dimensional matrices (technological domains, S&E fields and number of references). Three indicators are proposed to analyze these matrices, allowing us to identify patterns of structured growth that differentiate developed and non-developed countries. This differentiation informs suggestions for public policies for development, emphasizing the need for an articulation between the industrial and technological dimension and scientific side. The intertwinement of these two dimensions is a key component of developmental policies for the twenty-first century.     

Developing and Using Indicators of Multilateral S&T Cooperation for Policy Making: The Experience from European Research Programmes

As European Union research programmes play an increasingly important role within the research and innovation systems of Member States, the need for appropriate indicators to grasp and analyze this collaborative phenomenon has in recent years become obvious. Such indicators are becoming essential decision-making tools for science policy makers at the national level. EU science policy responds to not one but a number of objectives, while one country or one laboratory's participation in European S&T cooperation is likely to manifest a number of particularities, and be quite different from another's. Such a complex system makes it possible to elaborate a large variety of indicators. This article proposes several possible types of indicators and shows how they could be useful for weighing research policy strategies at the national and European levels.     

Science and technology policies: A tale of political use,misuse and abuse of traditional R&;D indicators

Future political priorities for science and technology (S&T) policy formulation usually rest on a rather simplistic interpretation of past events. This can lead to serious errors and distortions and can negatively affect the innovation system. In this article we try to highlight the riskiness involved in policy making based on traditional R&D indicators and trends. We would emphasise that this approach does not take account of structural aspects crucial for the analysis of the innovation system. We examine the implications for science, technical and human resources policies of the political challenge of R&D convergence in a peripheral EU region. Three scenarios are developed based on application of the same criteria to the trends observed in traditional R&D input indicators.     

A bibliometric study of research activity in ASEAN related to the EU in FP7 priority areas

Two relevant recent developments in the area of science and technology (S&T) and related policy-making motivate this article: first, bibliometric data on a specific research area’s performance becomes an increasingly relevant source for S&T policy-making and evaluation. This trend is embedded in wider discussions on evidence-based policy-making. Secondly, the scientific output of Southeast Asian countries is rising, as is the number of international research collaborations with the second area of our interest: Europe. Against this background, we employ basic bibliometric methodology in order to draw a picture of Southeast Asian research strengths as well the amount and focus of S&T cooperation between the countries in Southeast Asia and the European Union. The results can prove useful for an interested public as well as for the scientific community and science, technology and innovation policy-making.     

India's collaboration with People's Republic of China in Science and Technology: A scientometric analysis of coauthored papers during 1994-1999

The paper describes the need and importance of collaboration on scientific research. It discusses the present status of India's collaboration with China in S&T, analyses the collaborative research between India and China, as reflected in the co-authored papers, in particular its nature, strong and week areas and its impact in different subject fields and indicates the potential areas in S&T for future collaboration. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Results of an Extensive Search for "S&T Indicators" on the Web: A Content Analysis

In this study we carried out a content analysis of Web pages containing the search term "S&T indicators", which were located by an extensive search of the Web. Our results clearly show that the Web is a valuable information source on this topic. Major national and international institutions and organizations publish the full text of their reports on the Web, or allow free downloading of these reports in non-html formats. In addition to direct information, a number of pages listing and linking to major reports, programs and organizations were also located.     

Mapping the dynamics of knowledge base of innovations of R&;D in Bangladesh: triple helix perspective

Triple helix (TH) collaborations involving university, industry and government provide a networked infrastructure for shaping the dynamic fluxes of knowledge base of innovations locally and these fluxes remain emergent within the domains. This study maps these emergence dynamics of the knowledge base of innovations of Research & Development (R&D) by exploring the longitudinal trend of systemness within the networked research relations in Bangladesh on the TH model. The bibliometric data of publications collected from the Science Citation Index (SCI), the social sciences and the arts and humanities for analysis of science indicators and the patent data collected from the US Patent Office to analyze the patent success ratio as a measure of innovation within TH domains. The findings show that the network dynamics have varied considerably according to the R&D policies of the government. The collaboration patterns of co-authorship relations in the SCI publications prominently increased, with some variation, from 1996 to 2006. Nevertheless, inter-institutional collaboration negatively influenced by the national science and technology (S&T) research policies in the last 5 years due to their evaluation criteria. Finally, the findings reveal that the R&D system of Bangladesh is still undergoing a process of institutionalizing S&T and has failed to boost its research capacity for building the knowledge base of innovations by neglecting the network effects of TH dynamics.     

An assessment of the impact and visibility of South African journals

Summary Recognizing the critical role played by science and technology in the development of fuel cells, this article aims to characterize the evolution of the S&T knowledge bases of fuel cells over the nineties, using data on patents and scientific publications. The field of fuel cells is particularly heterogeneous. It covers diverse sub-fields that are marked by idiosyncratic characteristics (e.g. actors, demand, and input) and different historical developments. Although this heterogeneity of the field of fuel cells is reflected in the dynamics of S&T knowledge generation within and across its sub-fields too, this article shows that it does not entail the absence of cognitive interrelations between their S&T knowledge bases. For that purpose, the article uses “simultaneous mapping' approach of their S&T knowledge bases by means of textual analysis.     

Delineating development trends of nanotechnology in the semiconductor industry: Focusing on the relationship between science and technology by employing structural topic model

The bibliometrics research on nanotechnology highlights close interrelationships between scientific and technological activities (S&T) in the field of nanotechnology. Notwithstanding abundant empirical evidence on the mutual relations between S&T, the dynamics of the relationship from a contextual perspective have gained relatively little attention. Accordingly, our understanding of how science- and technology-oriented nanotechnology identifies development opportunities from each other is still at a nascent stage. To address this gap, by focusing on nanotechnology in the semiconductor industry, we use structural topic model to empirically explore the dynamic interrelationships between science- and technology-oriented nanotechnology. We empirically delineate the dynamic development trends in the context of the interrelationships between S&T and demonstrate how development opportunities are identified from each other. These findings show a new window of opportunities for how state-of-the-art models for semantic analysis can be used in the literature on S&T interrelationships.     

S&T education in India: Prospects and challenges

With the globalisation of the job market, higher education is undergoing structural changes and education scenario worldwide is experiencing dramatic and accelerating changes in patterns of creation of new knowledge. Similar activities are being witnessed in India as regards to the production of highly qualified S&T personnel in different disciplines. In this paper a comparative analysis of doctorates produced in India during 1974 to 1999 in different fields is carried out with the help of mathematical models. Besides analysing the trends of highly qualified S&T personnel with the help of known mathematical models, a few new substitution models have been proposed and applied to explain the movement of researchers from one discipline to the other. Findings suggest that arts, commerce, education and medicine depict growing trends, whereas agriculture, science and veterinary science are traversing a declining path. Further, proposed models are found to be flexible in nature and can capture and explain the shifting patterns very well. These models are comparable to other known models dealing with technology substitution. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Applicability of the Bradford distribution to international science and technology indicators

This is to assess the applicability of the Bradford distribution to an international science-technology indicators problem. The Bradford distribution which has been empirically known to be valid for the number of scientific articles on a given research topic across journals is applied to the number of scientific articles in a given research field across nations. The Bradford distribution is herein found to provide information of the degree of scientific-technological inequitability between advanced and latecomer nations and, more characteristically, a method for classification of nations into core, middle and peripheral classes with respect to their S&T selfreliance. This may suggest the usefulness of the Bradford distribution for anylsis of international science-technology indicators. Some theoretical discussions on mathematical properties of the Bradford distribution are given.     

Basic research is overshadowed by applied research in China: a policy perspective

This paper demonstrates that basic research has been overshadowed by applied research in China for decades, from the perspective of S&T policy. The data involves 4,707 Chinese S&T policies during the period between 1949 and 2010, which are grouped into five phases, based on the process of S&T system reform in China. We also found that S&T policies in China are leaning more towards basic research, and the gap between basic research and applied research is shrinking.