Changing National Origins of Materials Research Implications for Science and Technology Policy
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Changing National Origins of Materials Research ImplicationsforScience and Technology Policy Tonia K. Devon and Rustum Roy The analysis of scientific trends we present here is intended as an initial element in the development of indicators for science and technology policymaking. New science indicators are becoming increasingly necessary, especially to explore the variables that could affect economic competitiveness. Because publications are a major immediate outcome of scientific enterprise, we chose to quantify certain publication trends. We analyzed the recent publications output of five leading scientific nations—the United States, Japan, United Kingdom, U.S.S.R., and West Germany. The focus was on seven areas of materials research, which are identified later and also listed in Table III. Analysis of the number of journal publications and conference papers in seven areas of materials research, originating in five leading scientific nations, indicated the following: 1. Japan's share in every field has increased over the past 20 years. The U.S. has remained roughly the same, as has the Soviet Union when publication policies are taken into account. 2. Work in ferrous metals and alloys has increased worldwide in the last 20 years, but the trend since 1979 is clearly downward. For other fields, trends vary from country to country. 3. Comparing U.S. and Japanese data in the 1980s, the Japanese emphasis is most pronounced in ferrous metals, ceramics, and extractive metallurgy, in decreasing order of dominance. In cement, concrete, and related building materials, the publications of the two nations are nearly equal. Of the seven fields considered, the U.S. has double the publication rate of Japan in nonferrous metals, catalysis, and chemical and phase equilibria.
MRS BULLETIN/DECEMBER 1988
20-Year Trends in Chemical Literature In the 1970s the output of scientists and engineers working in the United States, as measured by published papers, accounted for approximately 37% of the total world scientific literature. According to Science Indicators,' published by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. share of chemical literature was 21%. Using data collected between 1976 and 1980, Chemical
Abstracts service obtained a similar figure of 26.3% of the world total.2 As Table I shows, the percentages for sources of chemical papers fell in all major industrialized nations included in the sample except for Japan and for developing countries (included in the "others" category). Data drawn from Chemical Abstracts indicate that between 1962 and 1983 Japanese output for publications in chemistry rose 3.7%, from 6.9 to 10.6% of world publications (see Table I). Of that 10.6%, 4.4% of the papers were published in Japanese. This makes Japanese the third most widely used language, though it substantially trails the 68.6% published in English and the 15.8% in Russian. Although concern has recently been expressed about access to Japanese-language scientific and technological literature, English abstracts are available. Wit
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