Sci-Bytes> Science in South Korea, 2005-09
Week of November 14, 2010
South Korea’s world share of science and social-science papers over a recent five-year period, expressed as a percentage of papers in each of 21 fields in the Thomson Reuters database. Also, South Korea’s relative citation impact compared to the world average in each field, in percentage terms.
Field | % papers fr. So. Korea | Impact vs. world |
---|---|---|
Computer Science | 6.45 | -54 |
Materials Science | 6.17 | -8 |
Engineering | 4.81 | -21 |
Pharmacology & Toxicology | 4.58 | -29 |
Physics | 4.51 | -13 |
Microbiology | 4.26 | -44 |
Chemistry | 3.32 | -10 |
South Korea's overall percent share, all fields: 3.02 | ||
Agricultural Sciences | 2.98 | -12 |
Biology & Biochemistry | 2.96 | -28 |
Mathematics | 2.36 | -17 |
Clinical Medicine | 2.22 | -34 |
Molecular Biology & Genetics | 2.20 | -39 |
Space Science | 1.78 | -2 |
Economics & Business | 1.78 | -37 |
Neuroscience & Behavior | 1.72 | -27 |
Immunology | 1.70 | -39 |
Plant & Animal Science | 1.68 | -2 |
Environment/Ecology | 1.51 | -31 |
Geosciences | 1.34 | -25 |
Social Sciences | 0.93 | -43 |
Psychiatry/Psychology | 0.60 | -24 |
Between 2005 and 2009, Clarivate indexed 157,045 papers that listed at least one author address in South Korea. Of those papers, the highest percentage appeared in journals categorized under the heading of computer science, by followed by materials science. As the right-hand column shows, the citations-per-paper score for South Korea-based researchers in materials science was 8% below the world average (3.10 cites per paper for South Korea, versus the world mark of 3.37). Although South Korea has yet to reach the world impact average in any of the main fields shown here, the nation’s performance was comparatively strong not only in materials, but in chemistry, space science, and plant & animal science.
SOURCE: National Science Indicators, 1981-2009 (containing listings of output and citation statistics for more than 170 countries; available in standard and deluxe versions from the Research Services Group).
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