Taiwan's Research Upswing
February 2010
A detailed examination of research from Taiwan reveals an increasing participation in world science.
Science Watch used the Thomson Reuters National Science Indicators database to measure Taiwan's annual output of papers in journals indexed by Thomson Reuters between 1990 and 2008.
According to the main fields covered in National Science Indicators, the nation's concentration is clearly in the physical sciences. Taiwan's greatest presence in any broad specialty area is in Engineering: papers listing at least one Taiwan-based institution account for 4.23 per cent of publications indexed between 2004 and 2008. Computer Science is next (3.48 per cent), followed by Materials Science (2.86 per cent) and Physics (2.45 per cent). A closer look at this research output shows that Engineering: Manufacturing leads the way with 1,670 papers that constitute more than eight per cent of the field for 2004 to 2008. Operations Research & Management is next, with Taiwan's representation topping seven per cent of Thomson Reuters-indexed papers during the five-year period.
In fields outside the physical sciences, Taiwan's output in three fields—Biology & Biochemistry, Pharmacology & Toxicology, and Molecular Biology & Genetics—has risen modestly. In contrast, output in clinical medicine has shown more than a tenfold increase from 350 Thomson Reuters-indexed papers in 1990 to 3,928 in 2008. Large increases were also seen in Psychiatry/Psychology, Economics & Business, and papers in general Social Sciences.
Although rising in output, Taiwan still has some progress to make in terms of citation impact: with a couple of exceptions, the country's cites-per-paper figure is below the world average.
Taiwan's research upswing: read the full report
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Taiwan's research upswing: read the full report
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