ISLMABAD – Pakistan beats India and China in the global research output in2018.
Pakistan has shown the largest percentage increase in research output in2018.
According to the report of the Institute for Scientific Information,Clarivate Analytics for Nature, emerging economies showed some of thelargest increases in research output in 2018. Pakistan and Egypt topped thelist in percentage terms, with rises of 21% and 15.9%, respectively.
China’s publications rose by about 15%, and India, Brazil, Mexico and Iranall saw their output grow by more than 8% compared with 2017.
It isn’t clear what has led to the rise for Pakistan and Egypt, but expertsthink that increases in funding and international collaborations might haveboosted the numbers in both the countries.
“One reason could be that both countries started from a low base — near thebottom of the list of top 40 countries in overall numbers of papers,” thearticle quoted Robert Tijssen, head of science and innovation studies atLeiden University in the Netherlands, as saying, a private news channelreported.
The figures have added the input from more local or national scientificjournals.
China’s publications rose by about 15%, and India, Brazil, Mexico and Iranall saw their output grow by more than 8% compared with 2017. Globally,research output rose by around 5% in 2018, to an estimated 1,620,731 paperslisted in a vast science-citation database Web of Science, the highest ever.
Clarivate owns Web of Science from which the data was drawn. Its analysisfor Nature.com focused on 40 countries that have at least 10,000 papers inWeb of Science.
China has had two decades of “strong policy-driven growth in science andhigher education”. It may soon overtake the US to become the largestproducer of publications. The quality of China’s science in terms ofcitations is also increasing.
“But for this to continue, the country will need to remain open to globalinfluences,” says Caroline Wagner, a science and technology policy analystat Ohio State University, and a former adviser to the US government.China’s censorship of Internet sources has left scientists complaining ofblocked databases and limited Internet searches, she says.