Describing national science and technology systems through a multivariate approach: country participation in the 6th Framework Programmes

The objective of this work is to describe the distribution of different types of participating organizations in the health thematic area of the 6th Framework Programme. A total of 2132 different organizations were classified according to four types and then grouped by country. A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was carried out on the percentage of funding obtained by each type of organization. Results show a countries map plotted around the “private” and “public” principal components. It is observed that there are countries which research is basically performed by government research centres, while others are supported in the university activity. We conclude that the PCA is a suitable method to plot the distribution of research organizations by country and the results could be used as a tool for theoretical studies about the scientific activity in a country.     

Das 6. Rahmenprogramm der EU – Chance und Herausforderung für die Industrie. The 6th Framework programme of the EC – chance and challenge for industry

The 6^th Framework Programme 2002 – 2006 (FP6) of the European Community was launched in November 2002. FP6 provides research with 17.5 million Euro overall showing an increase of about 17 % in comparison to the 5^th Framework Programme. FP6 aims at strengthening the scientific and technological fundamentals of European industry. It also intends to encourage the development of European industries international competitiveness. FP6 should also contribute to innovation and to the creation of the European Research Area (ERA). Major changes in funding conditions as well as new opportunities to submit proposals have not made easier to benefit from EC’s funding. This article gives an overview about the structure of funding and the administrative conditions. It indicates the possibilities of funding in the domain of “Nanotechnology, Materials and Production processes”.     

Knowledge-based innovation and collaboration: a triple-helix approach in Saudi Arabia

This study analyzed the research productivity of Saudi academics using the triple-helix model. In the analysis, we combined domestic and international collaboration by three sectors—university, industry, and government—according to the model of the triple-helix. This approach produces better results than by simply including international collaboration as fourth sector. According to the analysis, research collaboration in Saudi Arabia which is measured by the triple-helix, was “-” uncertainty (negative T-value) while scientific productivity has been dramatically increasing since the late 2000s. The triple-helix collaboration does not quite differ between domestic collaboration and “domestic and international” collaborations. In our further analysis, we found that technological development was not based on scientific research in Saudi Arabia; rather, the technological development relies on prior technology (patent references). From that point, Saudi Arabia’s current long-term strategic plan to develop a scientific base for a knowledge-based industry is well aligned to the current contexts of Saudi Arabia.     

The effect of academic inbreeding on scientific effectiveness

In academia, the term “inbreeding” refers to a situation wherein PhDs are employed in the very same institution that trained them during their doctoral studies. Academic inbreeding has a negative perception on the account that it damages both scientific effectiveness and productivity. In this article, the effect of inbreeding on scientific effectiveness is investigated through a case study. This problem is addressed by utilizing Hirsch index as a reliable metric of an academic’s scientific productivity. Utilizing the dataset, constructed with academic performance indicators of individuals from the Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering Departments, of the Turkish Technical Universities, we demonstrate that academic inbreeding has a negative impact on apparent scientific effectiveness through a negative binomial model. This model appears to be the most suitable one for the dataset which is a type of count data. We report chi-square statistics and likelihood ratio test for the parameter alpha. According to the chi-square statistics the model is significant as a whole. The incidence rate ratio for the variable “inbreeding” is estimated to be 0.11 and this ratio tells that, holding all the other factors constant, for the inbred faculty, the h-index is about 89% lower when compared to the non-inbred faculty. Furthermore, there exists negative and statistically significant correlation with an individual’s productivity and the percentage of inbred faculty members at the very same department. Excessive practice of inbreeding adversely affects the overall productivity. Decision makers are urged to limit this practice to a minimum in order to foster a vibrant research environment. Furthermore, it is also found that scientific productivity of an individual decreases towards the end of his scientific career.     

Advancing large-scale R&D projects towards grand challenges through involvement of organizational knowledge integrators

Public and private funding bodies make massive investments in research to address the grand challenges of the world. These require collective research efforts of a large number of partners to generate knowledge and ultimately create technologies to meet today’s grand challenges. Surprisingly, little research is conducted on how to design the research consortia appropriately that actually result in the development of new technologies. This article argues that when organisational knowledge integrators are involved in large-scale projects, they ensure that the research findings of earlier technology development efforts in a project are pulled towards innovation outcomes through their own position in the innovation value chain. This article uses a data-set with 376 collaborative R&D projects within energy technologies. Most importantly, this article confirms the existence of organisational knowledge integrators and the positive effects on project outcomes. These results are discussed with implications drawn for both applicants and funding bodies for future projects.     

The scientists pyramid

Summary In this short paper I propose a combination of qualitative and quantitative criteria to classify the quality, talent and creative thinking of the scientists of the “hard”, medical and biological sciences. The rationale for the proposed classification is to focus on the impact and overall achievements of each individual scientist and on how he is perceived by his own community. This new method is probably more complete than any other form of traditional judgment of a scientist's achievements and reputation, and may be useful for funding agencies, editors of scientific journals, science academies, universities, and research laboratories.     

Productivity, impact and publication habits by gender in the area of Materials Science

Summary A comparative analysis of the scientific performance of male and female scientists in the area of Materials Science at the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) is presented. Publications of 333 scientists during 1996-2000 are downloaded from the international database Science Citation Index and the national one ICYT. Scientific performance of scientists is studied through different indicators of productivity (number of SCI and ICYT publications), international visibility (average impact factor of publications, percentage of documents in “top journals”) and publication practices (%international publications, signing order of authors in the documents and different collaboration measures). Inter-gender differences in the research performance of scientists are studied. Influence of professional category and age are analysed. Although women are less productive than men, no significant differences in productivity are found within each professional category. However, a different life-cycle of productivity is found for men and woman and the most important inter-gender differences in productivity occur at the ages of 40-59.     

Time dependencies of Bradford distributions: Structures of journal output in 20th-century logic and 19th-century mathematics

Time dependencies of Bradford distributions are investigated for 19th-century mathematics and for 20th-century logic. To facilitate comparisons, for the representation of empirical Bradford distributions “Pareto's law” and Lorenz diagrams are used. It is shown that the character of a Bradford distribution (including the “core zone” and the “Groos droop”) depends on the stage in the development of a scientific field and that it varies with the time-span considered.     

Research on the semantic-based co-word analysis

Through analysis of problems of keywords and indexes used in co-word analysis, we find that the key to solving these problems is to integrate experts’ knowledge into co-word analysis. Therefore, this paper proposes a new co-word analysis: semantic-based co-word analysis which can integrate experts’ knowledge into co-word analysis effectively. The performance of this method has been proved to be very good. It can solve problems on keywords and indexes used in co-word analysis effectively and can improve the veracity of co-word analysis. Using this method, the research filed of “human intelligence network” in China has been analyzed. According to the analysis result, we point out that there are four research focuses on it in China now. They are “methods and theories of human intelligence network”, “human intelligence network”, “competitive intelligence system (CIS for short)”, “the construction and visualization of human intelligence network”. The findings of this study not only advance the state of co-word analysis research but also shed light on future research directions.     

Modeling macro-R&;D production frontier performance: an application to Chinese province-level R&;D

This paper proposes a novel methodological framework for effectively measuring the production frontier performance (PFP) of macro-scale (regional or national) R&D activities themselves associated with two improved models: a non-radial data envelopment analysis (DEA) model and a nonradial Malmquist index. In particular, the framework can provide multidimensional information to benchmark various R&D efficiency indexes (i.e., technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency) as well as the total factor R&D productivity change (determined by three components: “catch-up” of R&D efficiency, “frontier shift” of R&D technology as well as “exploitation” of R&D scale economics effect) at a comparable production frontier. It can be used to not only investigate the potential and sustainable capacity of innovation but also screen and finance R&D projects at the regional or national level. We have applied the framework to a province-level panel dataset on R&D activities of 30 selected Chinese provinces.     

Crookes’ Radiometer und Geißlers Lichtmühle — Kooperation oder Konkurrenz?

Scientific instruments provide crucial historical information about the research process, and are valuable sources for historians of science and technology. The design of the radiometers which William Crookes constructed for his own use in experimentation in the mid-1870s show technical features originally developed by the German instrument maker Heinrich Geissler in the construction of his “lightmills”. Further analysis reveals a myriad of connections between scientists and instrument makers. Members of this group such as Geissler or his former apprentice and co-worker Goetze participated in the discussion of radiometer effects and their place within the kinetic theory of gases, going beyond a passive role as invisible technicians to actively intervene in the research process. These technological improvements contributed both to basic and applied scientific knowledge, and the proliferation of their instruments created a network of cooperation and competition which lay the foundations for a new field of research.      

Profilgewinn. Karten der Atlantischen Expedition (1925–1927) der Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft

One of the prestigious projects of the “Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft”, the German association promoting the sciences after World War I, was the “German Atlantic Expedition” aboard theMeteor (1925–1927), which became famous for systematically sounding and charting a large part of the South Atlantic Ocean’s floor. Focussing on two examples of theMeteor’s depth charts, the profile and the map, the paper claims that these visualizations of ocean depth not only gave evidence of Germany’s unbroken scientific excellence: they also acquired symbolic meaning within the German after-war struggles to regain lost colonial territory. The charts created public space for the revaluation of the German nation by visually constituting a new spatial realm of German influence. The paper investigates the production and function of visual depth evidence by tracing how the depth profile and map developed from single depth measurements into coherent and authentic pictures, which allowed for conceptualizing the abstract data volume of acceanographic space in terms of newly procured national grounds.      

Characteristics of research in China assessed with Essential Science Indicators

To provide an overview of the characteristics of research in China, a bibliometric evaluation of highly cited papers with high-level representation was conducted during the period from 1999 to 2009 based on the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) database. A comprehensive assessment covered overall performance, journals, subject categories, internationally collaborative countries, national inter-institutionally collaborative institutions, and most-cited papers in 22 scientific fields. China saw a strong growth in scientific publications in the last decade, to some extent due to increasing research and development expenditure. China has been more active in ESI fields of chemistry and physics, but more excellent in materials science, engineering and mathematics. Most publications were concerned with the common Science Citation Index subject categories of multidisciplinary chemistry, multidisciplinary materials and science, and physical chemistry. About one half China’s ESC papers were internationally collaborative and the eight major industrialized countries (the USA, Germany, the UK, Japan, France, Canada, Russia, and Italy) played a prominent role in scientific collaboration with China, especially the USA. The Chinese Academy of Sciences took the leading position of institutions with many branches. The “985 Project” stimulated the most productive institutions for academic research with a huge funding injection and the universities in Hong Kong showed good scientific performance. The citation impact of internationally collaborative papers differed among fields and international collaborations made positive contributions to academic research in China.     

Using a bibliometric approach to support research policy making: The case of the Flemish BOF-key

In this paper, we describe the development of a methodology and an instrument to support a major research funding allocation decision by the Flemish government. Over the last decade, and in parallel with the decentralization and the devolution of the Belgian federal policy authority towards the various regions and communities in the country, science and technology policy have become a major component of regional policy making. In the Flemish region, there has been an increasing focus on basing the funding allocation decisions that originate from this policy decentralization on “objective, quantifiable and repeatable” decision parameters. One of the data sources and indicator bases that have received ample attention in this evolution is the use of bibliometric data and indicators. This has now led to the creation of a dedicated research and policy support staff, called “Steunpunt O&O Statistieken,” and the first time application of bibliometric data and methods to support a major inter-university funding allocation decision. In this paper, we analyze this evolution. We show how bibliometric data have for the first time been used to allocate 93 million Euro of public research money between 6 Flemish universities for the fiscal year 2003, based on Web-of-Science SCI data provided to “Steunpunt O&O Statistieken” via a license agreement with Thomson-ISI. We also discuss the limitations of the current approach that was based on inter-university publication and citation counts. We provide insights into future adaptations that might make it more representative of the total research activity at the universities involved (e.g., by including data for the humanities) and of its visibility (e.g., by including impact measures). Finally, based on our current experience and interactions with the universities involved, we speculate on the future of the specific bibliometric approach that has now been adopted. More specifically, we hypothesize that the allocation method now developed and under further improvement will become more criticized if it turns out that it (1) also starts influencing intra-university research allocation decisions and, as a consequence (2) introduces adverse publication and citation behaviors at the universities involved. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Research profiling: Improving the literature review

We propose enhancing the traditional literature review through “research profiling”. This broad scan of contextual literature can extend the span of science by better linking efforts across research domains. Topical relationships, research trends, and complementary capabilities can be discovered, thereby facilitating research projects. Modern search engine and text mining tools enable research profiling by exploiting the wealth of accessible information in electronic abstract databases such as MEDLINE and Science Citation Index. We illustrate the potential by showing sixteen ways that “research profiling” can augment a traditional literature review on the topic of data mining. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Research trends analysis by comparing data mining and customer relationship management through bibliometric methodology

There are few comprehensive studies and categorization schemes to discuss the characteristics for both data mining and customer relationship management (CRM) although they have already become more important recently. Using a bibliometric approach, this paper analyzes data mining and CRM research trends from 1989 to 2009 by locating headings “data mining” and “customer relationship management” or “CRM” in topics in the SSCI database. The bibliometric analytical technique was used to examine these two topics in SSCI journals from 1989 to 2009, we found 1181 articles with data mining and 1145 articles with CRM. This paper implemented and classified data mining and CRM articles using the following eight categories—publication year, citation, country/territory, document type, institute name, language, source title and subject area—for different distribution status in order to explore the differences and how data mining and CRM technologies have developed in this period and to analyze data mining and CRM technology tendencies under the above result. Also, the paper performs the K–S test to check whether the analysis follows Lotka’s law. The research findings can be extended to investigate author productivity by analyzing variables such as chronological and academic age, number and frequency of previous publications, access to research grants, job status, etc. In such a way characteristics of high, medium and low publishing activity of authors can be identified. Besides, these findings will also help to judge scientific research trends and understand the scale of development of research in data mining and CRM through comparing the increases of the article author. Based on the above information, governments and enterprises may infer collective tendencies and demands for scientific researcher in data mining and CRM to formulate appropriate training strategies and policies in the future. This analysis provides a roadmap for future research, abstracts technology trends and facilitates knowledge accumulations so that data mining and CRM researchers can save some time since core knowledge will be concentrated in core categories. This implies that the phenomenon “success breeds success” is more common in higher quality publications.     

The contribution of star scientists to overall sex differences in research productivity

The state of the art on the issue of sex differences in research efficiency agrees in recognizing higher performances for males, however there are divergences in explaining the possible causes. One of the causes advanced is that there are sex differences in the availability of aptitude at the “high end”. By comparing sex differences in concentration and performance of Italian academic star scientists to the case in the population complement, this work aims to verify if star, or “high-end”, scientists play a preponderant role in determining higher performance among males. The study reveals the existence of a greater relative concentration of males among star scientists, as well as a performance gap between male and female star scientists that is greater than for the rest of the population. In the latter subpopulation the performance gap between the two sexes is seen as truly marginal.     

Der Stoff, aus dem das Leben ist

Between 1900 and 1930 colloid chemistry, a branch of physical chemistry, gained crucial importance for the understanding of vital phenomena. To many it seemed that the properties of colloids would differ from those of ordinary matter, paralleling the specific properties of protoplasm, the “living substance”. The application of theoretical concepts and experimental models of colloid chemistry to biological problems shaped “Biocolloidology” as a new research program, which appeared promising for the exploration of organic processes such as mitotic cell division, growth, muscle contraction and movement. “Biocolloidology” could simultaneously absorb the quest for a physical-chemical explanation of life and the (post)-romantic notion of organic nature as a container of creative and vital forces that was central to life-philosophy. At least until the late 1920s, it is argued, the merging of different scientific and philosophical metaphors made “Biocolloidology” and the concept of protoplasm highly appealing in a broad cultural context.      

Scientometric evidence for the existence of long economic growth cycles in Europe 1500–1900

In times of economic stagnation, the debate about “long waves” of economic growth typically refreshes. This has also been the case in the period of the world-wide economic stagnation since 1970. But the results concerning the existence of long-term cycles of economic activity are still controversial. In this contribution, the “ups and downs in the pulse of science and technology” (Price) are related to economic growth cycles. It turns out that Schumpeter's contention of an inverse relationship between the level of scientific and technological activity on the one side and economic growth on the other side is correct for 1500 to 1900. Thereby also an indirect proof is furnished for the existence of long economic growth cycles in the last centuries.     

Transient and continuant authors in a research field: The case of terrorism

The issue of research continuance in a scientific discipline was analyzed and applied to the field of terrorism. The growing amount of literature in this field is produced mostly by one-timers who “visit” the field, contribute one or two articles, and then move to another subject area. This research pattern does not contribute to the regularity and constancy of publication by which a scientific discipline is formed and theories and paradigms of the field are created. This study observed the research continuance and transience of scientific publications in terrorism by using obtainable “most prolific terrorism authors” lists at different points in time. These lists designed by several terrorism researchers, presented a few researchers who contributed to the field continuously and many others whose main research interest lay in another discipline. The four lists observed included authors who were continuants, transients, new-comers, and terminators (who left the field). The lack of continuous, full-time research in a research field is typical of many disciplines, but the influence of this research pattern on a field’s growth and stability is different for older, established disciplines than for new and formative fields of study. With in the former, intellectual mobility could contribute to the rise of new topics and probably enrich the particular scientific field; with the latter, by contrast, it could hamper the formation and growth of the field.