A systemic view of British science

Systemic analyses of national research systems are now within the reach of bibliometricians. By systemic we mean comprehensive, time series, institutionally based, sectoral level analyses of national research output. This paper describes such an analysis for the UK, a system comprising 8% of world scientific output. The paper analyses publishing size and the number of publishing institutions for each sector. Then each sector's intra-sectoral, inter-sectoral and international collaboration is assessed. The paper then examines the data by field, looking at sector publishing profiles across fields, and at how the collaborative patterns vary between fields. It concludes with a summary profile of each institutional sector.