Ireland'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
Scientific database. Also, Ireland's citation impact compared to
the world average in each field, in percentage terms.
Field
Percentage of papers
from Ireland
Relative impact
compared to world
Agricultural Sciences
1.10
+24
Microbiology
0.71
Even
Space Science
0.64
-18
Mathematics
0.50
-34
Plant & Animal Sciences
0.48
-4
Computer Science
0.47
-14
Economics & Business
0.47
-36
Clinical Medicine
0.46
+11
Social Sciences
0.45
-23
Immunology
0.44
+26
Ireland's overall percent share, all fields:
0.42
Biology & Biochemistry
0.41
Even
Neurosciences & Behavior
0.40
+7
Geosciences
0.40
+19
Psychology/Psychiatry
0.39
-10
Physics
0.38
+12
Engineering
0.38
-5
Materials Science
0.37
+17
Pharmacology
0.37
-6
Molecular Biology & Genetics
0.34
+6
Ecology/Environmental
0.34
-21
Chemistry
0.30
+12
Between 2002 and 2006, Thomson Scientific indexed 17,054 papers that listed
at least one author address in Ireland. Of those papers, the highest
percentage appeared in journals categorized under the heading of
agricultural sciences. As the right-hand column shows, the
citations-per-paper figure for agricultural-sciences reports from Ireland
exceeded the world average by 24% (3.39 citations per paper for Ireland
versus a world mark of 2.74 citations). Ireland also scored well in
relative impact in immunology (26% above the world mark), geosciences
(+19%), and materials science (+17%). In two fields, the impact of
Ireland-based research happened to match the world mark precisely:
microbiology (6.91 cites per paper) and biology & biochemistry (7.56
cites per paper).
SOURCE:
National
Science Indicators, 1981-2006 (containing listings of output and
citation statistics for more than 170 countries; available in standard and
deluxe versions from the
Research Services Group).