Sci-Bytes> Science in the United Kingdom, 2005-09
Week of September 5, 2010
The United Kingdom'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, the U.K.’s relative citation impact compared to the world average in each field, in percentage terms.
| Field | % papers fr. U.K. | Impact vs. world |
|---|---|---|
| Space Science | 16.45 | +48 |
| Economics & Business | 14.01 | +9 |
| Social Sciences | 13.35 | +19 |
| Psychiatry/Psychology | 12.69 | +18 |
| Molecular Biology & Genetics | 10.48 | +35 |
| Geosciences | 10.42 | +52 |
| Immunology | 9.83 | +20 |
| Neuroscience & Behavior | 9.34 | +34 |
| Clinical Medicine | 9.32 | +31 |
| Microbiology | 8.59 | +38 |
| Biology & Biochemistry | 8.27 | +35 |
| The United Kingdom's overall percent share, all fields: 8.07 | ||
| Environment/Ecology | 8.03 | +45 |
| Computer Science | 7.15 | +21 |
| Plant & Animal Science | 7.03 | +63 |
| Engineering | 6.79 | +16 |
| Physics | 6.63 | +48 |
| Pharmacology & Toxicology | 6.61 | +48 |
| Mathematics | 5.86 | +21 |
| Chemistry | 5.06 | +34 |
| Materials Science | 4.69 | +48 |
| Agricultural Sciences | 4.39 | +57 |
Between 2005 and 2009, Thomson Reuters indexed 419,808 papers bearing at least one author address in a United Kingdom constituent nation (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland). Of those papers, the highest percentage appeared in journals indexed in the category of space science, followed by economics & business. As the right-hand column shows, the impact of space-science papers from U.K.-based authors exceeded the world impact average in the field by 48% (11.37 cites per paper for the U.K., versus 7.69 cites for the world). The U.K.’s relative-impact performance was also notably strong in plant & animal science (63% above the world mark), agricultural sciences (57% above), and geosciences (+52%).
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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