Andre points us to SciImago — a Web site to mine science journals. Using their aggregates per country and some data from Wikipedia, I made up a table on number of science papers produced per country going back to 1996.
| Country | Science papers (1996-2006) | Population (current) | Papers per capita |
| US | 3,437,213 | 303,202,683 | 0.011 |
| Japan | 983,020 | 127,718,000 | 0.0077 |
| UK | 962,640 | 60,587,300 | 0.015 |
| Germany | 888,287 | 82,251,000 | 0.010 |
| China | 758,042 | 1,323,128,240 | 0.00057 |
| France | 640,163 | 64,102,140 | 0.010 |
| Canada | 473,763 | 33,148,682 | 0.014 |
| Italy | 461,292 | 59,206,382 | 0.0077 |
| Spain | 330,399 | 45,116,894 | 0.0073 |
| India | 286,109 | 1,131,043,000 | 0.00025 |
| Sweden | 194,921 | 9,174,082 | 0.021 |
| Switzerland | 188,134 | 7,508,700 | 0.025 |
| Israel | 120,257 | 7,222,222 | 0.0166 |
| Norway | 70,314 | 4,738,085 | 0.015 |
What is fascinating is that the picture changes dramatically if you just look at the most recent year (2006):
| Country | Science papers (2006) | Population (current) | Papers per capita |
| US | 340,268 | 303,202,683 | 0.0011 |
| China | 166,205 | 1,323,128,240 | 0.000125 |
| UK | 107,528 | 60,587,300 | 0.0018 |
| Japan | 97,073 | 127,718,000 | 0.00076 |
| Germany | 95,310 | 82,251,000 | 0.0012 |
| France | 67,652 | 64,102,140 | 0.0011 |
| Canada | 56,571 | 33,148,682 | 0.0017 |
| Italy | 54,298 | 59,206,382 | 0.0009 |
| Spain | 41,914 | 45,116,894 | 0.0009 |
| India | 38,140 | 1,131,043,000 | tiny |
| Switzerland | 22,966 | 7,508,700 | 0.003 |
| Sweden | 20,926 | 9,174,082 | 0.002 |
| Israel | 13,049 | 7,222,222 | 0.0018 |
| Norway | 8,670 | 4,738,085 | 0.0018 |
These numbers suggest some significant changes:
- The US is still leading in the number of papers produced, but it no longer dominates. And it may not lead for many more decades if China keeps this up.
- Canada, Switzerland, Norway, Spain and Italy are improving their per capita numbers.
- Switzerland has a surprisingly high number of papers per capita.
- Japan has a surprisingly low number of papers per capita.
Thanks Martin. I was aware of this limitation. If you can pull out the numbers, I will gladly update my tables.
This is an unequal comparison – you cannot compare one years scientific publication total & current population with 10 years of publication and the _current_ population – the figure would need to be an aggregate of the publication ratio per capita per year now (averaged over 10) to produce a valid comparison.
Otherwise you are just saying: look! here’s how many people today would publish per person if they had been publishing for ten years in the space of one year, vs. Look, here’s how many we actually publish in one year!
M.
Who claimed that more publications corresponds to more science?
I did no such thing.
Japan a surprisingly small number? I’m not sure they have included all the local publications! It’s more a problem of their database than a problem of Japan.
Also, I am very skeptical of claims that more publications corresponds to more science. More publications given the same amount of intelligence corresponds to more bullshit.
Per capita data is not important. It is not about money. Papers reflect the whole country. Big population has some advantage.
Probably you will be intersting in this … its about Journals of OR..but still its pretty intersting
http://dsslab.cs.unipi.gr/mejds/map/