The latest edition of Nature Index appears to show that the production of high-quality scientific research in North America and Europe has declined alarmingly.
The ranking is based on a list of the most highly regarded journals in four broad fields, Chemistry, Life Sciences, Earth and Environmental Sciences, and Physical Sciences. It covers only a fraction of the world’s scientific articles but it does represent the most rigorous and influential research.
Data is presented by tables measuring a count of articles and also the fractional share, which is the contribution of countries or institutions to publications in those journals.
The latest table is unambiguous. The adjusted share of the USA has fallen by 6.2%. Other Western countries have done no better: the UK and France are both down 5.7%, Canada 4.2 %, and Australia 3.7%. In marked contrast, China has risen 14,4%, India 15.2%, South Korea 2.3%, and Turkey 25.4%.
It is the same for institutions The scores for the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao tong University have all posited gains of over ten percent. Meanwhile Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Michigan, and Yale have all fallen.
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