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Quantifying progress in research topics across nations.

Authors :
Asatani, Kimitaka
Oki, Sumihiro
Momma, Takuya
Sakata, Ichiro
Source :
Scientific Reports; 3/23/2023, Vol. 13 Issue 1, p1-10, 10p
Publication Year :
2023

Abstract

A scientist's choice of research topic affects the impact of their work and future career. While the disparity between nations in scientific information, funding, and facilities has decreased, scientists on the cutting edge of their fields are not evenly distributed across nations. Here, we quantify relative progress in research topics of a nation from the time-series comparison of reference lists from papers, using 71 million published papers from Scopus. We discover a steady leading-following relationship in research topics between Western nations or Asian city-states and others. Furthermore, we find that a nation's share of information-rich scientists in co-authorship networks correlates highly with that nation's progress in research topics. These results indicate that scientists' relationships continue to dominate scientific evolution in the age of open access to information and explain the failure or success of nations' investments in science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
20452322
Volume :
13
Issue :
1
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Scientific Reports
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
162679687
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31452-8