SCI-BYTES - WHAT'S NEW IN RESEARCH
Week of February 10, 2008
South Korea's world share of science and social-science papers over a
recent five-year period, expressed as a percentage of papers in each of 21
fields in the
Thomson
Scientific database. Also, South Korea's relative citation
impact compared to the world average in each field, in percentage
terms.
|
Field
|
Percentage of papers
from South Korea
|
Relative impact
compared to world
|
|
Materials Science
|
5.80
|
-1
|
|
Computer Science
|
5.64
|
-32
|
|
Physics
|
4.54
|
-12
|
|
Engineering
|
4.48
|
-21
|
|
Pharmacology
|
3.94
|
-41
|
|
Chemistry
|
2.91
|
-9
|
|
Microbiology
|
2.61
|
-42
|
|
South Korea's overall percent share, all fields:
2.46
|
|
Agricultural Sciences
|
2.27
|
-10
|
|
Biology & Biochemistry
|
2.17
|
-34
|
|
Mathematics
|
1.95
|
-23
|
|
Ecology/Environmental
|
1.68
|
-30
|
|
Clinical Medicine
|
1.52
|
-36
|
|
Neurosciences & Behavior
|
1.46
|
-40
|
|
Immunology
|
1.40
|
-52
|
|
Plant & Animal Sciences
|
1.37
|
-11
|
|
Economics & Business
|
1.37
|
-38
|
|
Molecular Biology & Genetics
|
1.35
|
-41
|
|
Geosciences
|
1.15
|
-20
|
|
Space Science
|
1.15
|
-29
|
|
Social Sciences
|
0.70
|
-40
|
|
Psychology/Psychiatry
|
0.47
|
-34
|
Between 2002 and 2006,
Thomson
Scientific indexed 100,029 papers that listed at least one
author address in South Korea. Of those papers, the highest percentage
appeared in journals indexed in the category of materials science. As the
right-hand column indicates, materials science is also the field in which
South Korea's citations-per-paper average compared most favorably with the
world mark, coming in at 99% of the world score, or just 1% below: 2.61
cites per paper for Korea versus 2.64 cites for the world. South
Korea-based authors also displayed comparative strength in chemistry (91%
of the world mark, or 9% below), agricultural sciences (-10%), and plant
& animal sciences (-11%).
SOURCE:
National Science Indicators, 1981-2006 (containing listings
of output and citation statistics for more than 170 countries; available in
standard and deluxe versions from the
Research Services Group).
