The Structure and infrastructure of chinese science and technology

Kostoff, Ronald N. and Briggs, Michael B. and Rushenberg, Robert L. and Bowles, Christine A. and Pecht, Michael (2006) The Structure and infrastructure of chinese science and technology. Technical Report.

Abstract

This report identifies and analyzes the science and technology core competencies of China. The first part of the study was performed in the 2003-2004 time frame, and analyzes databases containing 2000-2003 data for China. The second part of the report was sponsored in part by ONR Global, and contains an analysis of 2005 data from China. For the first part of the study, aggregate China publication and citation bibliometrics were obtained, and manual and statistical taxonomies were generated. The manual taxonomy was based on reading a random sample of ten percent of all China records retrieved, and included many manually-assigned attributes for each record. The statistical taxonomies were based on both word/ phrase clustering and document clustering. For the second part of the study, one hierarchical research taxonomy, based on document clustering, was generated. The second hierarchical level of this research taxonomy for 2005 records contains four categories: 1) chemistry (5841 records); 2) physics/ materials (13966 records); 3) mathematics (7162 records); life sciences (7377 records). The physics/ materials category has almost three times as many records as the chemistry category, and twice the records of the mathematics category. Detailed analysis of the taxonomy allowed four representative technical topics to be identified (nanotechnology; genetics; alloys; crops), and bibliometrics analysis was performed for each topic. Use of bibliometrics (e.g., key researchers, Centers of Excellence, core journals) allowed the infrastructure of these technical areas to be identified. Two unique approaches were developed to compare characteristics of China’s science and technology output with that of other countries. First, a novel method was used to compare the impact/ quality of all of China’s research with that of two other countries, India and Australia. Second, a unique approach was used to compare China’s research investment emphases/ strategy relative to that of the USA. China’s output of research articles has expanded dramatically in the last decade. In terms of sheer numbers of research articles, especially in critical technologies (e.g., nanotechnology, energetic materials), it is among the leaders. In terms of citation impact, it was higher than India in all major categories (e.g., Physical, Environmental, Materials, and Life Sciences), but was lower than Australia in all these major categories. In terms of investment strategy relative to that of the USA, China is investing more heavily in the hard science areas that underpin modern defense and commercial activities, whereas the USA is investing more heavily in the medical, psychological, and social problem (e.g., drug use) science areas that underpin improvement of individual health and comfort.