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Science and Engineering Indicators 2004
  Table of Contents     Figures     Tables     Appendix Tables     Presentation Slides  
Chapter 5:
Highlights
Introduction
Financial Resources for Academic R&D
Doctoral Scientists and Engineers in Academia
Outputs of Scientific and Engineering Research: Articles and Patents
Conclusion
References
 
 
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Academic Research and Development

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Outputs of Scientific and Engineering Research: Articles and Patents

Worldwide Trends in Article Output
Flattening of U.S. Article Output
Field Distribution of Articles
Scientific Collaboration
International Citation of S&E Articles
Citations in U.S. Patents to S&E Literature
Patents Awarded to U.S. Universities

The products of academic research include trained personnel and advances in knowledge. Trained personnel are discussed earlier in this chapter and also in chapter 2. This section presents data on two additional indicators of scientific research output: scientific articles and patents received by U.S. academic institutions. In addition, it presents data on citations to previous scientific work contained in articles and patents.

Articles, patents, and citations provide indicators, albeit imprecise ones, of scientific output, the content and priorities of scientific research, the institutional and intellectual linkages within the research community, and the ties between scientific research and practical application. Data on articles, patents, and citations, used judiciously, enable meaningful comparisons of institutional sectors, scientific disciplines, and nations.

Articles are one key output for scientific research because publication has been the norm for disseminating and validating research results and is crucial for career advancement in most scientific fields. Data on the authorship of articles also provide information on the extent of research collaboration and on patterns and trends in collaboration across institutional, disciplinary, and national boundaries.

Citations provide another measure of scientific productivity by indicating how influential previous research has been. Patterns in citations can show links within and across institutional boundaries. Citations to scientific articles in U.S. patents provide indications of the degree to which technological innovations rely on scientific research.

The number of patents issued to U.S. universities is another indicator of the output of academic science. In addition, it is an indicator of the relationship between academic research and commercial application of new technologies.

Output of U.S.-authored scientific articles has flattened since the early 1990s, while article output grew strongly in Western Europe, Japan, and several East Asian countries during this period. The reasons for the change in the U.S. trend are unknown and are under investigation. Collaboration between institutional authors within and across national boundaries has grown considerably over the past 2 decades. Although the U.S. continues to have the largest share of internationally authored articles, this share has declined over the past 2 decades as countries have expanded and deepened their collaboration with other countries. Patenting and related activities by U.S. academic institutions continued to increase during the 1990s, suggesting the growing effort and success of universities to commercialize their research results and technology.

For a discussion of the nature of the data used in this section, see sidebar, "Data and Terminology."

Worldwide Trends in Article Output top of page

The volume of articles published in the world's key S&E journals is an indicator of the output of scientific and technical research in the United States and other countries. The United States had the largest single share of articles in the world in 2001, accounting for approximately one-third of all articles. When the shares of Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France are added to the United States, these five countries account for nearly 60 percent of all articles published in 2001. Adding other countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and other high-income countries increases this share to more than 80 percent of world output (table 5-18 text table). These countries generally also rank high on a per capita output basis. Their wealthy, technically advanced economies enable them to maintain pools of scientists and engineers and the scientific and technical infrastructures their work requires and to provide relatively high levels of financial support for their S&E enterprises.[39]

World article output increased by almost 40 percent from 1988 to 2001, largely driven by growth in Western Europe, Japan, and several emerging East Asian S&T centers (South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and China). In contrast, growth in article output by U.S. authors was markedly slower and remained essentially flat after 1992 (figure 5-30 figure). Flattening of output in almost all fields drove the U.S. trend (table 5-19 text table).

The basic picture of broad article trends shows that the nations with the greatest wealth and the most mature S&T infrastructures lost some ground, in relative terms, to developing nations with moderate income levels.[40] Low-income nations experienced little change in their shares of the world's S&E publications (figure 5-31 figure).

Western Europe's article output grew by about two-thirds from 1988 to 2001 and surpassed that of the United States in 1997. Output gains were substantial across most countries, especially many of the smaller and/or newer members of the European Union (EU) (figure 5-30 figure and appendix table 5-35 Microsoft Excel icon). This growth may reflect, at least in part, EU and regional programs to strengthen the S&T base, as well as these nations' individual efforts.[41]

Japan's article output increased steadily over the period. It rose at approximately the same pace as Western Europe's, resulting in a two-thirds growth in output. This growth coincided with a substantial increase in Japan's R&D expenditures.

East Asian authors in China, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan produced S&E articles at a sharply accelerating pace, attesting to the rapid scientific and technological progress of these economies. Over the 14-year period covered here, article output rose almost 5-fold in China, 6-fold in Singapore and Taiwan, and 14-fold in South Korea. This pushed their collective share of the world total from 1.5 percent in 1988 to 6.6 percent in 2001. On a per capita output basis, China remains well below the world average, whereas the other three rank well above it (table 5-20 text table).

The output volume of Central and South America grew by more than 8 percent per year. Three countries—Argentina, Brazil, and Chile—generated more than 85 percent of the region's articles in 2001, and all had moderately high per capita incomes, relatively large pools of scientists and engineers, and undertook recent reforms of their economies and scientific enterprises (NSF/SRS, 2000). Article output in Western Asia is influenced by Indian publications, which started to rise in the late 1990s after years of stagnation. India's science community, however, has renewed its debate about the health of its science enterprise in light of much higher S&E article growth in the emerging East Asian countries.[42] Scientists in North Africa and the Middle East increased their article output by about 3 percent annually, but increases in Israeli output, accounting for the bulk of the region's publications, lagged behind the overall pace of growth. The output of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, including South Africa, stagnated or fell; the region accounted for less than 1 percent of world output.

Output in Eastern Europe and Central Asia fell almost 20 percent during this period, with article volume in countries of the former USSR dropping by one-third (appendix table 5-35 Microsoft Excel icon). This sharp decline mirrors the economic and political difficulties that affected their scientific enterprise, including significant cuts in their R&D spending. In contrast, several Eastern European countries had substantial gains in output in the latter half of the 1990s.

Flattening of U.S. Article Output top of page

The number of S&E articles by authors based in the United States has remained flat since 1992, even though real R&D expenditures and the number of researchers continued to rise. This trend diverged from that of most other OECD countries during this period and is a reversal from 3 prior decades of consistent growth (figure 5-32 figure). The reasons for this development remain unknown. (See sidebar, "Exploring Recent Trends in U.S. Publications Output.")

This phenomenon is not limited to the United States. Three mature industrial countries with significant article outputs—Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands—experienced a similar flattening of article output, starting in the latter half of the 1990s (figure 5-33 figure). In addition, in most other OECD countries, increases in article output were slower in the second half of the 1990s than in the first half.

Table 5-19 text table shows that in most individual fields, the growth trends in U.S.-authored articles followed similar trajectories. The number of articles continued to rise into the 1990's but remained constant thereafter. Chemistry and physics articles declined after 1992, with a particularly steep drop in physics. Output in biology was stagnant over the entire 1988–2001 period. Output in the earth and space sciences increased, although the increase slowed toward the end of the period.

The growth trend in articles from the U.S. academic sector, which accounts for almost three-fourths of U.S. articles, was similar to that of overall output (figure 5-34 figure and appendix table 5-36 Microsoft Excel icon). Output flattened across most individual scientific fields starting in the mid-1990s. Physics articles, however, declined significantly after 1994. The field distribution of scientific articles in the U.S. academic sector remained largely unchanged during this period (figure 5-35 figure and appendix table 5-36 Microsoft Excel icon).

Article output of other sectors followed a similar growth path. In the Federal Government, output declined after 1994, primarily because of a decrease in articles in the life sciences and physics. Industry output also declined during the 1990s, with significant declines in the fields of chemistry, physics, and engineering and technology. The exception to this trend was the nonprofit sector, in which article share grew during the late 1990s because of an increasing number of articles in clinical medicine.

Field Distribution of Articles top of page

The field distribution of scientific articles changed little between 1988 and 2001. The life sciences dominated the portfolio of the OECD countries, including the United States, and of Central and South America and Sub-Saharan Africa (figure 5-36 figure and appendix tables 5-37 Microsoft Excel icon and 5-38 Microsoft Excel icon). The share of life sciences is noticeably smaller in the Middle East (excluding Israel), Eastern Europe/Central Asia, and the four emerging Asian countries, with the physical sciences and engineering and technology more dominant.

Scientific Collaboration top of page

Coauthorship of S&E articles reveals the changing social structure of the conduct of scientific research. In most fields, articles are increasingly authored by research teams that span academic departments or institutions, cross-sectoral boundaries, or include international collaborators. Collaboration on S&E articles, as measured by articles with more than one institutional author, has increased significantly in the past 2 decades. Collaboration on scientific articles has intensified across institutional boundaries in the United States and between countries. The rise in domestic and international collaboration has been driven by several factors:

  • Scientific need. Cutting-edge science in many fields increasingly involves a broad range of knowledge, perspectives, and techniques that extend beyond a given discipline or institution. Moreover, the scope, cost, and complexity of some of today's scientific problems, such as mapping the human genome, studying global environmental trends, or constructing an observatory in space, invite and often compel domestic and international collaboration.

  • Technological advances. Advances in transportation and information and communications technologies have reduced geographical and cost barriers to domestic and international collaboration. Air travel and international telephone calls have become relatively inexpensive. E-mail greatly facilitates collaboration by allowing rapid exchange of information and reducing the need for frequent face-to-face meetings or telephone exchange. The increasing use of high-capacity computer networks allows researchers to exchange data files and even to conduct experiments from a distance. Improvements in software permit researchers to share research findings, conduct research online without requiring a centralized laboratory, and conduct virtual experiments.

  • Education. Study abroad appears to contribute to growth in international collaboration.[43] Relationships established between foreign students and their teachers can form the basis of future collaboration after the students return to their native country. As an important supporting element in other factors driving collaboration, information technology greatly facilitates this type of collaboration.

  • Falling political barriers. The end of the Cold War allowed countries to establish and/or renew political, economic, and scientific ties. It also led to the addition of new members to the world's countries.[44]

  • Government policies. A range of nations have adopted policies to encourage scientific collaboration, motivated by the belief that collaboration maximizes and leverages their public investment in research funding, increases progress in S&T, boosts domestic capability, and/or speeds the transfer of knowledge. These policies include public R&D funding requirements to encourage or require domestic or international collaboration and formal international S&T agreements with other countries.

Collaboration Within the United States

Scientific collaboration across institutional boundaries in the United States is extensive and has continued to intensify. The share of coauthored articles increased from 48 percent of all U.S. articles in 1988 to 62 percent in 2001 (figure 5-37 figure and appendix tables 5-39 Microsoft Excel icon and 5-40 Microsoft Excel icon). The level of institutional collaboration by field, in terms of the share of coauthored articles, was highest in clinical medicine, biomedical research, the earth and space sciences, and physics, and lowest in chemistry, psychology, the social sciences, and the professional fields (figure 5-37 figure). According to an earlier study, these variations may reflect the nature, culture, and complexity of the research by field and the level and requirements of government funding.[45]

Government policies have reinforced collaboration by requiring or encouraging collaboration as a condition of research funding and by announcing programs targeted to encouraging cross-sectoral collaboration [e.g., between industry and universities or federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs)]. This is particularly evident in the academic sector, where collaboration has been increasing between departments within an institution, between universities, and between universities and other sectors, including the government, industry, and the nonprofit sector.

In 2001, articles with authors from different institutional sectors (academic, industry, Federal Government, nonprofit institutions, FFRDCs, and state and local government) accounted for more than one-third of the academic sector's coauthored articles and more than three-fourths of those of the other sectors (table 5-21 text table and appendix tables 5-41 Microsoft Excel icon and 5-42 Microsoft Excel icon). The academic sector was at the center of cross-sectoral collaboration, represented in more than 80 percent of the articles originating in other sectors. Patterns of cross-sectional collaboration are field specific, centered around a key sector on the basis of shares that substantially exceed the average of all articles:

  • The nonprofit sector is a key collaborator with academia and FFRDCs in clinical medicine, a field in which it has a large share of article output relative to its overall share.

  • Industry is a significant collaborator with academia in chemistry and partners with the Federal Government and academia in engineering and technology.

  • The Federal Government is a key collaborator with academia and FFRDCs in the earth and space sciences.

International Collaboration

The international nature of science and its increasing globalization are reflected in the growth of international collaboration in scientific and technical research. Trends in international coauthorship of research articles in leading S&E journals provide a measure of the extent of international collaboration. The number of collaborative articles (i.e., those with institutional authors from more than one country) has greatly increased over the past 2 decades, and they constitute a larger proportion of all articles than in the past.

From 1988 to 2001, the total number of internationally coauthored articles more than doubled, increasing in share from 8 to 18 percent of all S&E articles. This rise has been driven by intensified collaboration among the dominant centers of S&E publishing, the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. It also reflects an increase in collaboration between these dominant centers and developing and emerging economies in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Near East, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. Finally, it reflects the development of an East Asian area of collaboration centered in China.

U.S. authors participate in the majority of internationally coauthored articles, and they collaborate with authors around the world. However, as other countries expanded the number and reach of their international collaborations, the U.S. share of internationally coauthored papers has fallen since the late 1980s. The extent of U.S. collaboration with scientists from other countries is shown in their growing shares of coauthorships on U.S. articles. Authors from Western European countries are well represented, and several emerging economies, notably China and South Korea, have also become major collaborators with the United States.

U.S. Role in International Scientific Collaboration. The extent of a country's influence on world scientific developments can be broadly indicated by the range of its international connections, measured here by the volume of internationally coauthored articles in which its authors participate. U.S.-based authors were represented in 44 percent of all internationally coauthored articles in 2001. In terms of number of collaborative partners, the United States collaborated with 166 of 180 countries that collaborated on any scientific article in 2001 (table 5-22 text table and appendix table 5-43 Microsoft Excel icon). U.S. scientists collaborated in 18 to 42 percent of the internationally coauthored articles of most Western European countries. U.S. participation rates were higher in articles by Asian scientists, particularly those from China, the Asian newly industrialized economies (NIEs) of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, and the two countries with low overall rates of international collaboration, India and Japan (table 5-23 text table and appendix table 5-44 Microsoft Excel icon).

With emerging and developing countries, U.S. collaboration is also significant and tends to be relatively high with countries that have significant regional output, such as Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa. The exception is Eastern Europe, where the U.S. share is generally lower than that of most other countries, ranging from 12 to 29 percent for almost all countries in this region.

The international collaborative activities of other countries generally grew more rapidly than those of the United States, resulting in an erosion of the relative U.S. share in these collaborations, although not their absolute number. The U.S. share of most countries' internationally authored papers was lower in 2001 than in 1988 (table 5-23 text table and appendix table 5-44 Microsoft Excel icon). This pattern suggests that new centers of activity and collaboration are evolving outside of the United States. Among the major producers, the largest relative decline in U.S. collaboration was with Israel and Japan. These countries expanded their collaboration with many Western European countries and Russia; Japan also increased its collaboration with several Asian countries. Among emerging countries, the U.S. share in the Asian NIEs declined as these countries increased their ties with other Western European and other Asian countries, chief among these being China.

However, in an exception to this general trend, U.S. participation in China's internationally coauthored articles continued to rise, even as China's article output more than tripled in volume during the brief span from 1994 to 2001. Other exceptions included collaboration with scientists in Russia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Ukraine. The rise in the U.S. share of these countries' international collaborations may reflect the effects of U.S. and other programs targeted to this goal. For example, several U.S. Federal agencies, including NSF, DOE, and NIH, have current or former programs to help fund collaborative research. In addition, the other organizations, including the EU, Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF), and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), have programs that allow or encourage U.S. scientific collaboration with Eastern Europe.

Extent of International Collaboration on U.S. Scientific Articles. The degree to which other countries' scientific establishments are influential in the scientific and technical developments of the United States can be measured broadly by the role internationally coauthored articles play in the output of U.S. S&E articles. By 2001, 23 percent of all U.S. articles had at least one non-U.S. coauthor, compared with 10 percent in 1988. By field, international collaboration was highest in physics, the earth and space sciences, and mathematics, ranging from 35 to 38 percent of U.S. articles (figure 5-38 figure). International collaboration rates were much lower in the social and behavioral sciences at about 10 percent.

The countries with the highest rates of collaboration with the United States were largely those with mature S&T systems. The top 15 collaborators with the United States included several Western European countries, Japan, Canada, China, South Korea, and Russia (table 5-24 text table). Expansion of such ties has been particularly rapid for China, which vaulted from 14th to 7th largest collaborator during the period,[46] and South Korea, which moved from 17th to 12th. The patterns of international collaboration with the United States also appear to reflect the ties of foreign students who received advanced training in the United States (figure 5-39 figure).[47]

International Collaboration Outside the United States

The development of scientific collaboration beyond the boundaries of mature industrial economies is illustrated by the expansion of collaborative ties among the other nations. International collaboration in the rest of the world grew significantly in terms of volume and share of internationally coauthored articles relative to all S&E articles between 1988 and 2001. This increase was the result of an expansion in the volume of existing collaboration among countries and a substantial increase in the number of new country partnerships (figure 5-40 figure).

In 2001, nearly 60 countries had ties to at least 50 or more other nations, compared with 43 in 1994. Emerging and developing countries generally expanded their collaborative ties more than mature science producers (table 5-22 text table and appendix table 5-43 Microsoft Excel icon).[48] Although international ties greatly expanded, many countries, particularly those with smaller science establishments, tend to collaborate with relatively few developed countries.

In Western Europe, articles with at least one international coauthor accounted for 33 percent of all articles in 2001, up from 17 percent in 1988 (figure 5-40 figure). Countries in this region, many of which had extensive ties during the previous decade, continued to expand their partnerships. There were 10 Western European countries with ties to 100 or more nations in 2001, a clear sign of this region's extensive scientific collaboration with other nations (table 5-22 text table). Countries that had a particularly rapid expansion in collaborative partners included Spain, Norway, Portugal, Turkey, and Ireland; these countries also had rapidly expanding article output. Much of the high degree of international collaboration in Western Europe (as measured by the share of the countries' articles with institutional coauthors from other European countries) reflects the extensive intraregional collaboration centered on France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom (appendix table 5-45 Microsoft Excel icon). The extent of and increase in intra-European collaboration in part reflects historical ties and in part the effects of EU programs that encourage collaboration.

In Asia, the share of international articles increased from 11 percent of all articles in 1988 to 21 percent in 2001, reflecting an expansion in international coauthorship by China, India, Japan, and emerging countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia (figure 5-40 figure). Japan, China, and India saw their collaborative ties extend to more than 100 countries between 1994 and 2001 (table 5-22 text table).

The rate of international coauthorship of the East Asian economies of China, Taiwan, and South Korea stayed constant during this period at 8–30 percent of their rapidly increasing output (appendix table 5-44 Microsoft Excel icon). However, their collaboration expanded to a larger number of countries, primarily major science producers, as their share of U.S.-coauthored articles declined from very high levels. Greater intraregional collaboration in Asia, centered particularly on China, was also a significant factor in the increase in international collaboration for these three NIEs (appendix table 5-46 Microsoft Excel icon).

In other emerging and developing regions, such as Central and South America, countries expanded their collaboration with Western Europe and Japan and also increased their collaboration with countries in their own region (appendix table 5-47 Microsoft Excel icon). Intraregional collaboration in Central and South America, however, is more modest and limited than in Western Europe and Asia.

International Citation of S&E Articles top of page

Citations in S&E articles generally credit the contribution and influence of previous research to a scientist's own research. Trends in citation patterns by region, country, scientific field, and institutional sector are indicators of the perceived influence and productivity of scientific literature across institutional and national boundaries.[49] Citations may also provide an indication of the access to and visibility of scientific research across national boundaries.

The trends and patterns in the citation of scientific literature by country are similar to those in the output of S&E articles. On the basis of volume, the major producers of scientific articles—the United States, Western Europe, Japan, and other OECD countries—are those whose S&E literature is most cited (table 5-25 text table and appendix table 5-48 Microsoft Excel icon). In 2001, the United States' share of the world's output of cited S&E literature was 44 percent, the largest single share of any country. Collectively, the OECD countries accounted for 94 percent of the world's cited scientific literature in 2001 (table 5-25 text table), a share that exceeded these countries' share of the world output of S&E articles (see table 5-18 text table).

Citation of the S&E literature of the OECD countries was also high relative to these countries' share of world output of S&E articles. When the United States' share of literature cited by the rest of the world is adjusted for its share of published literature, its relative citation index, it is the most cited compared with other regions and second most cited country (table 5-26 text table and appendix tables 5-49 Microsoft Excel icon and 5-50 Microsoft Excel icon). The relative citation indexes of the Western European countries, whose S&E literature is also frequently cited by the United States and other regions, especially Eastern Europe/Central Asia, are also high. Measured by relative citation index, Switzerland is the most highly cited country in the world and the top-cited country in the fields of engineering and technology (with an especially high index of 1.8) and biology and shares the top spot with the United States in biomedical research.

In contrast to the OECD countries, the emerging and developing countries were cited 25 to 75 percent less relative to their worldwide share of S&E articles (appendix table 5-50 Microsoft Excel icon). In specific scientific fields, however, the relative citation indexes of a few emerging/developing countries rival those of the OECD countries. For example, Chile is the second most cited country in the earth and space sciences, and Slovenia is highly cited in mathematics.

The volume of cited scientific literature increased 43 percent between 1992 and 2001, largely driven by citation of the literature of the same regions and countries that spurred the growth in the output of scientific articles: Western Europe, Japan, and several emerging East Asian S&T centers (figure 5-41 figure). Citation of Western European literature grew by 68 percent between 1992 and 2001, pushing this region's share of the world's cited literature from 30 to 35 percent. The increase in citation of Western European literature was led by many of same countries with dynamic growth in output of scientific articles, smaller and newer members of the EU such as Spain, Portugal, and Ireland. Citation of Japanese literature also rose substantially, increasing at roughly the same rate as Western European literature.

Citation of literature from East Asian authors in China, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan more than quadrupled in volume during this period, with the collective share of these countries rising from 0.7 percent of the world's cited literature in 1992 to 2.1 percent in 2001. Despite the dramatic growth in the citation volume of these countries, their relative citation indexes did not increase markedly between 1994 and 2001 (appendix table 5-50 Microsoft Excel icon), a stability that may reflect, in part, the concentration of these countries' international ties with the United States and within Asia and/or their very rapid growth in article output.

The volume of cited U.S. scientific literature, however, flattened during the mid-1990s, with its share of cited world S&E literature falling from 52 percent in 1992 to 44 percent in 2001 (appendix table 5-48 Microsoft Excel icon). This flattening in citation of U.S. literature occurred across almost all fields and mirrored the trend of flat U.S. output of S&E articles during this period (table 5-27 text table). On a relative basis, however, the rate of citation of U.S. literature remained unchanged (table 5-26 text table and appendix tables 5-49 Microsoft Excel icon and 5-50 Microsoft Excel icon).

Other regions and countries also saw their citation volume increase. Between 1992 and 2001, citation of literature from Central and South America almost tripled, that from Eastern Europe/Central Asia and the Near East/North Africa rose by about one-half, and that from sub-Saharan Africa rose 17 percent. The citation volume of Indian literature, the second most widely cited in Asia, rose by 70 percent during this period.

The increase in citation volume in most regions coincided with a growing share of citations to work done outside of the author's country. The rate of citing foreign research varied by field, with high shares in physics, mathematics, and engineering and technical fields, and the lowest shares in the social and behavioral sciences (figure 5-42 figure). Averaged across all fields, 62 percent of all citations in 2001 were to S&E literature produced outside the author's country, compared with 55 percent in 1992. This overall rate masks the United States' much lower rate of citing foreign S&E literature in comparison with the rest of the world (appendix table 5-51 Microsoft Excel icon).

The country whose S&E literature was cited most by U.S. authors between 1994 and 2001 was the United Kingdom, followed by Germany, Japan, Canada, France, and other Western European countries (table 5-28 text table). Worldwide, many citations of foreign S&E literature were to centers with a well-developed S&T base: the United States, Western Europe, and, to some extent, Japan and the emerging East Asian countries. The exception to this is Western Europe, where about half of the citations are intraregional, consistent with the region's high degree of intraregional collaboration.

Citations in U.S. Patents to S&E Literature top of page

U.S. patents cite previous source material to help meet the application criteria of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO).[50] Although existing patents are the most often cited material, U.S. patents increasingly have cited scientific articles. This growth in citations of S&E literature, referenced by scientific field, technology class of the patent, and the nationality of the inventor and cited literature, provide an indicator of the link between research and practical application.[51]

The number of U.S. patent citations to S&E articles indexed in the Institute for Scientific Information's SCI rose more than 10-fold between 1987 and 2002 (figure 5-43 figure).[52] Even as the number of patents rose rapidly, the average number of citations per U.S. patent increased more than sixfold during this period (figure 5-44 figure).

The rapid growth of article citations in patents throughout much of the past decade was centered in huge increases in the life science fields of biomedical research and clinical medicine. Between 1995 and 2002, these fields accounted for 75 percent of the increase in total patent citation volume, and their share increased from 61 to 70 percent (appendix table 5-52 Microsoft Excel icon).

The growth of citations of scientific research in patents attests to the increasing link between research and practical applications. The growth in citations has been driven, in part, by increased patenting of research-driven products and processes, primarily in the life sciences.[53] In addition, changes in practices and procedures in the U.S. PTO may have increased the incentive for and ease of citing scientific literature. (See sidebar, "Growth of Referencing in Patents.")

The bulk of U.S. patents citing scientific literature were issued to U.S. inventors, who accounted for 65 percent of these patents in 2001, a share that has been disproportionately higher than the U.S. inventor share of all U.S. patents since the past decade. Other key inventor regions and countries of U.S. patents that cite scientific literature are Western Europe (17 percent), including France (3 percent), Germany (5 percent), and the United Kingdom (3 percent); Japan (11 percent); emerging East Asia (2 percent); and Canada (3 percent) (table 5-29 text table).

Examination of the share of cited literature in the United States, Western Europe, and Asia, adjusted for their respective world output share of scientific literature (relative citation index) and excluding citation of literature from the inventor's own country or region, suggests that inventors outside the United States, primarily those from Western Europe and Asia, frequently cite U.S. scientific literature (table 5-30 text table). This is comparable to the high rate of citation of U.S. scientific literature by scientists in these regions. In addition, Asian physics articles are highly cited by inventors outside of Asia.

U.S. patents most commonly cite articles authored within the academic sector, primarily the life science fields of clinical medicine and biomedical research.[54] In 2002, the U.S. academic sector accounted for 61 percent of total citations, with almost three-fourths of these citations to clinical medicine and biomedical research (appendix table 5-53 Microsoft Excel icon). The U.S. academic sector also had a strong presence in physics and engineering and technology, accounting for about half the citations in these fields. Between 1995 and 2002, the academic sector share increased in physics (from 40 to 51 percent) and engineering and technology (from 44 to 49 percent) coinciding with stagnating output of articles authored within the industrial sector. Industry was the next most widely cited sector (19 percent share), with articles in the fields of physics and engineering and technology prominently represented (38 and 42 percent, respectively).

The life sciences, particularly biomedical research and clinical medicine, dominated nearly every sector, with from 67 to more than 90 percent of all citations (appendix table 5-53 Microsoft Excel icon). This included sectors that had prominent citation shares in the physical sciences earlier in the decade (industry and FFRDCs). They experienced significant declines in citations of articles in these fields, whereas their share of life sciences citations grew significantly.

Patents Awarded to U.S. Universities top of page

The results of academic S&E research increasingly extend beyond articles in S&E journals to patent protection of research-derived inventions.[55] Patents are an indicator of the efforts of academic institutions to protect the intellectual property of their inventions, technology transfer,[56and industry-university collaboration. The rise of patents received by U.S. universities attests to the increasingly important role of academic institutions in creating and supporting knowledge-based industries closely linked to scientific research.

Patenting by academic institutions has markedly increased over the past 3 decades, rising from about 250–350 patents annually in the 1970s to more than 3,200 patents in 2001 (appendix table 5-54 Microsoft Excel icon; see also NSB 1996, appendix table 5-42 Microsoft Excel icon). The share of academic patents has also risen significantly, even as growth in all U.S. patents increased rapidly during this period. For example, U.S. academic institutions accounted for more than 4 percent of patents granted to the U.S. private and nonprofit sectors in 2001, compared with less than 1.5 percent in 1981. The share, however, was down slightly from a peak of almost 5 percent during 1997–99 (figure 5-46 figure).

During this period, the number of academic institutions receiving patents increased rapidly, nearly doubling in the 1980s to more than 150 institutions and continuing to grow to reach 190 institutions in 2001 (appendix table 5-54 Microsoft Excel icon).[57] Both public and private institutions participated in this rise.

Despite the increase in institutions receiving patents, the distribution of patenting activity has remained highly concentrated among a few major research universities. The top 25 recipients accounted for more than 50 percent of all academic patents in 2001, a share that has remained constant for 2 decades. These institutions also account for a disproportionate share (40 percent in 2001) of all R&D expenditures by academic patenting institutions. Including the next 75 largest recipients increases the share to more than 90 percent of patents granted to all institutions in 2001 and much of the 1990s. Many smaller universities and colleges began to receive patents in the 1980s, which pushed the large institutions' share as low as 82 percent, but the trend reversed in the 1990s (appendix table 5-54 Microsoft Excel icon). Several factors appear to have driven the rise in academic patenting:

  • The Bayh-Dole University and Small Business Patent Act. Passed in 1980, this law[58] permitted government grantees and contractors to retain title to inventions resulting from federally supported R&D and encouraged the licensing of such inventions to industry. Although some Federal agencies permitted universities to retain title before Bayh-Dole, this law established a uniform government-wide policy and process for academic patenting.

  • Emerging and Maturing Research-Based Industries. During the 1990s, industries emerged and matured that used commercial applications derived from "use-oriented" basic research in life sciences fields such as molecular biology and genomics (Stokes 1997).

  • Strengthening of Patent Protection. Changes in the U.S. patent regime strengthened overall patent and copyright protection and encouraged the patenting of biomedical and life sciences technology. The creation of the Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit to handle patent infringement cases was one factor in the strengthening of overall patent protection. The Supreme Court's landmark 1980 ruling in Diamond v. Chakrabarty, which allowed patentability of genetically modified life forms, also may have been a major stimulus behind the recent rapid increases.

The growth in academic patents occurred primarily in the life sciences and biotechnology (Huttner 1999). Patents in two technology areas or "utility classes," both with presumed biomedical relevance, accounted for 39 percent of the academic total in 2001, up from less than a fourth in the early 1980s. The class that experienced the fastest growth—chemistry, molecular biology, and microbiology—increased its share from 8 percent to 21 percent during this period (figure 5-47 figure).

A survey by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), which tracks several indicators of academic patenting, licensing, and related practices, attests to the expansion of patenting and related activities by universities (table 5-31 text table). The number of new patent applications more than quadrupled between FYs 1991 and 2001,[59] indicating the growing effort and increasing success of universities obtaining patent protection for their technology.

Two indicators related to patents—invention disclosures and new licenses and options—provide a broader picture of university efforts to exploit their technology. Invention disclosures, which describe the prospective invention and are submitted before a patent application or negotiation of a licensing agreement, rose sharply during this period. New licenses and options, indicating the commercialization of university-developed technology, also rose by more than half since FY 1996.

Obtaining patent protection does not always precede negotiation of a licensing agreement, underscoring the embryonic nature of university-developed technology. According to a recent survey of more than 60 major research universities, 76 percent of respondents reported that they "rarely" or "sometimes" had patent or copyright protection at the time of negotiating the licensing agreement, whereas 25 percent responded "often" or "almost always" (Thursby et al. 2001).[60] In addition, most inventions were at a very early stage of development when the licensing agreement was negotiated, and nearly half the respondents characterized their inventions as a proof of concept rather than a prototype (table 5-32 text table).

The majority of licenses and options (66 percent) are conducted with small companies (existing companies or startups), most likely influenced by the Bayh-Dole Act's mandate that universities give preference to small businesses (figure 5-48 figure). In cases of unproven or very risky technology, universities often opt to make an arrangement with a startup company because existing companies may be unwilling to take on the risk. Faculty involvement in startups may also play a key role in this form of alliance. The majority of licenses granted to small companies and startups are exclusive, that is, they do not allow the technology to be commercialized by other companies.

With the steady increase of revenue-generating licenses and options, income to universities from patenting and licenses has grown substantially over the past decade, reaching more than $850 million in FY 2001—more than half the FY 1996 level.[61] Licensing income, however, is only a fraction of overall academic research spending, amounting to less than 4 percent in FY 2001.[62]

The 1999 AUTM survey found that about half of universities' royalties were concentrated in technology related to the life sciences. The survey categorized one-third of the remaining royalties as "not classified" and the remainder as being in the physical sciences, which appears to include engineering. Licensing income is also highly concentrated among a few universities and blockbuster patents. For example, the 2000 AUTM survey found that less than 1 percent of active licenses generated more than $1 million in income in FY 2000, a figure that includes licenses held by U.S. universities and hospitals, Canadian institutions, and patent management firms.

Because data on costs are not available, it is unclear whether universities break even or profit from their technology transfer activities. Gross revenue is allocated among the university, the inventor (who typically receives a 30–50 percent share), and costs such as patent and license management fees, which can be considerable (Sampat 2002).[63] One study estimated that 58 percent of universities surveyed made a profit on their patenting and licensing activities in 1996 (Trune and Goslin 2000).

University-industry collaboration and successful commercialization of academic research in the United States contributed to the rapid transformation of new and often basic knowledge into industrial innovations, including new products, processes, and services. Other nations, seeing these benefits, are endeavoring to import these and related practices in an effort to strengthen innovation. (See sidebar, "Academic Patenting and Licensing in Other Countries"). In the United States, however, scholars and policymakers are debating whether academic patenting and related activities led to unintended or potentially harmful effects. (See sidebar, "Debate Over Academic Patenting in the United States.")



Data and Terminology top of page

The article counts, coauthorship data, and citations discussed in this section are based on science and engineering articles, notes, and reviews published in a slowly expanding set of the world's most influential scientific and technical journals tracked by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). These data are not strictly comparable to those presented in previous editions of Science & Engineering Indicators, which were based on a fixed ISI journal set. The advantage of the "expanding" set of journals is that it better reflects the current mix of influential journals and articles. The number of journals covered by ISI that published relevant material (i.e., articles, notes, or reviews) was 4,460 in 1988, 4,601 in 1993, 5,084 in 1998, and 5,262 in 2001.

Field designations for articles in the ISI-tracked journals are determined by the classification of the journal in which an article appears. Journal classification, in turn, is based on the patterns of a journal's citations (appendix table 5-34 Microsoft Excel icon).

SCI and SSCI give reasonably good coverage of a core set of internationally recognized scientific journals, albeit with some English-language bias. ISI coverage extends to electronic journals, including print journals with electronic versions and electronic-only journals. Journals of regional or local importance may not be covered, which may be salient for the categories of engineering and technology, psychology, the social sciences, the health sciences, and the professional fields, as well as for nations with a small or applied science base.

Author as used here means institutional author. Articles are attributed to countries and sectors by the author's institutional affiliation at the time of publication. If an institutional affiliation is not listed on the paper, it would not be attributed to an institutional author. Likewise, coauthorship refers to institutional coauthorship: a paper is considered coauthored only if its authors have different institutional affiliations or are from separate departments of the same institution. Multiple authors from the same department of an institution are considered as one institutional author. The same logic applies to cross-sectoral or international collaboration.

All data presented here derive from the Science Indicators database prepared for the National Science Foundation by CHI Research, Inc. The database excludes all letters to the editor, news pieces, editorials, and other content whose central purpose is not the presentation or discussion of scientific data, theory, methods, apparatus, or experiments.


Exploring Recent Trends in U.S. Publications Output top of page

Publication of research results in the form of articles in peer-reviewed journals is the norm for contributing to the knowledge base in many scientific disciplines. It has become customary to track the number of peer reviewed articles as one, albeit imperfect, indicator of research output. In recent years, international use of this and related indicators has become widespread, as countries seek to assess their relative performance.

The recent flattening in the output of U.S. science and engineering publications contrasts with continued increases in real research and development expenditures and number of researchers. The reasons for these divergent trends remain obscure. To explore what factors may be implicated in this development, the National Science Foundation is undertaking a special study that addresses the following questions:

  • What key trends affected the scientific publishing industry in the 1990s?

  • Is the apparent change in output trends real or an artifact of the indicators used?

  • What are the characteristics of the change in the trend?

  • What factors may contribute to it, and what evidence exists about whether and how these factors are involved?

The project analyzes key developments in scientific publishing, with particular focus on the 1990s, to establish the broad outlines of the environment in which scientific publishing in the United States is taking place. It also includes methodological research that focuses directly on the publications themselves. This research will examine the effects of measurement approaches, journal coverage, and other technical considerations on indicators of publications output.

Work will also be undertaken to determine where in the U.S. research system these trend changes are found; what institutional, demographic, funding, or other factors may be contributing to them; and what the nature of these relationships may be. Field differences in publication patterns will be a major theme of the analysis. The results of the study are expected to be published in Science & Engineering Indicators — 2006 and in special reports.



Growth of Referencing in Patents top of page

During the past decade, the rate at which scientific papers are referenced in patents has increased rapidly. The causes of this growth are complex, but they appear to include changes made in the patent law in 1995. These changes, enacted to comply with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), changed the term of patent protection from 17 years from the award date to 20 years from the filing date for applications received after June 8, 1995. Previously rejected patents refiled after this date would also be subject to the GATT rules. Applications submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office more than doubled in May and June of 1995. These applications carried an unusually large number of references to scientific material. Patents applied for in June 1995 carried three times the number of scientific references of those filed in March 1995 and six times the number of those filed in July 1995. This sudden increase in referencing affected patents in all technologies, not just those in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, in which referencing is most extensive.

The surge in applications during this period suggests that applicants and their attorneys rushed to file their patents under the old rules, perhaps out of caution and uncertainty about the GATT rules. One source of uncertainty in the application process at the time, affecting especially biotechnology, was ambiguity about what constituted adequate written description. Because a rejected application would have to be refiled under the GATT rules, referencing a great deal of scientific material may have been a strategy to minimize the chance of rejection for inadequate written description.

Patents applied for in May and June 1995 were issued gradually over the next few years. As these patents were issued, the rate of referencing increased rapidly. However, after the last of these applications were processed, the rate of referencing fell again to levels closer to those found earlier. In fact, if these patents are eliminated from consideration, a more gradual long-term trend of increased referencing is evident (figure 5-45 figure).



Academic Patenting and Licensing in Other Countries top of page

Beginning in the mid-1990s, several countries, particularly members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), sought to encourage and increase commercialization of technology developed at universities and other publicly supported research institutions (table 5-33 text table). The focus has been on clarifying and strengthening ownership and exploitation of an institution's intellectual property and on granting ownership of intellectual property to universities and other public research organizations (PROs) in countries where the inventor or government was the owner. The justification for these legal and policy changes is that institutional ownership provides greater legal certainty, lowers transaction costs, and fosters more formal and efficient channels for technology transfer as compared with ownership by the government or the inventor (OECD 2002). Changes in intellectual property protection of academic institutions were through a variety of means, including reforming national patent policies, employment law, and research funding regulation and clarifying policy and administrative procedures of technology license offices.

The motivation for consideration and change of these countries' regulations and policies is due to a variety of factors (OECD 2002; Mowery and Sampat 2002):

  • Emulation of the United States. Many countries believe that the United States has been very successful at commercializing its university technology, especially following the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act, which they consider a key factor in allowing the United States to benefit economically from its scientific research through encouraging and speeding up the commercialization of university inventions. This is especially true of European countries that would like to create indigenous science-based industries and believe that the level of commercialization from their public R&D is inadequate.

  • Exploitation of Inventions Developed From Publicly Funded Research. There is concern that current regulations and practices limit and slow the commercialization of technology developed from publicly funded research. Countries would like a greater commercial return from their investments in public scientific research and believe that strengthening and clarifying policies toward licensing and patenting will encourage and speed up commercialization.

  • Generation of Licensing Revenues. Countries believe an increase in patenting and licensing by universities will increase revenue from licensing technology, which could support university technology activities or university research. Some countries, however, acknowledged that licensing offices lose money on their operations, and are considering subsidizing their operations with public funding

  • Formation of Spinoff Companies. Countries believe that commercialization of university-developed technology could yield formation of startup companies. Forming spinoff companies is viewed as desirable for creating new high-technology or science-based jobs and industries, fostering entrepreneurial skills and culture, and increasing competition among existing firms.

  • Promotion of International Scientific Collaboration. The EU countries, in particular, are concerned that differing national laws and policies, particularly ownership of university technology, inhibit scientific collaboration within the EU by raising transaction costs due to legal complications and uncertainty.

The OECD conducted a survey in 2001 of member countries' technology transfer offices and examined national laws and regulations. The survey found that in countries that enacted legislation, awareness of and support for technology transfer increased among the major stakeholders, although relatively little growth in patenting, licensing, or spinoffs occurred. In addition, most licensing of technology from universities and public research organizations is based on nonpatentable inventions. These findings raise the question of whether specific features of the U.S. education, research, and legal systems play a key part in the commercialization of the results of academic research and development in the United States.


Debate Over Academic Patenting in the United States Conclusion top of page

Scholars and policymakers expressed concern that the increase of patenting by universities may be having unintended and possibly harmful effects on universities, faculty, and the quality and direction of academic research. These concerns include:

  • University Portfolio and Mission. Universities may be emphasizing or diverting resources toward research areas with commercial potential. Faculty who have relationships with existing firms or are involved in spinoff firms may have a conflict of interest or divert their efforts from their other research or teaching activities. This diversion of effort and resources away from noncommercial areas of research may harm or slow progress in these areas and may erode the widely held precept that universities promote knowledge for knowledge's sake.

  • Dissemination of Knowledge. Licensing agreements often contain clauses that restrict or delay publication of research results or require researchers to obtain approval or pay costs for using their technology in upstream applications. In addition, researchers in these fields may restrict or withhold their results to maintain a competitive advantage. As a result, research progress in these fields may be hampered or slowed, which may be a critical concern in health or medical applications. In a broader sense, the concern is that withholding knowledge may erode the scientific norm of publicizing research results.

  • Technology Transfer Costs. The costs of setting up, maintaining, and administering technology transfer activities are considerable, and evidence suggests that many universities do not make a profit on these activities. For example, patent litigation, which can be very costly and time consuming, has been increasing with the rise in university patents. The cost of technology transfer raises the question of whether the monetary and nonmonetary benefits of technology transfer outweigh the costs, or whether universities would obtain a higher return from other activities.

  • Commercialization of Technology. The popularity of exclusive licensing agreements in university-licensed technology has raised concerns that this type of agreement results in higher costs to consumers and a slower pace of innovation and adoption of the technology. Proponents of exclusive agreements contend that exclusive licensing agreements are necessary to compensate for the risk of commercializing unproven and embryonic university technology and that the concerns of slower innovation and adoption are not warranted.

There is also debate about whether patenting of academic research results is appropriate or necessary. Critics argue that patenting is neither appropriate nor necessary for most research results, given their embryonic nature, and that transfer of university technology would occur in the absence of patenting.




Footnotes

[39]  Also see chapter 2, "Higher Education in Science and Engineering"; chapter 4, "U.S. and International Research and Development: Funds and Technology Linkages"; and chapter 6, "Industry, Technology, and the Global Marketplace."

[40]  As determined by the World Bank, which classifies countries as high, middle, or low on the basis of their per capita income.

[41]  These include the EU 5-year Framework and programs of other pan-European organizations, such as EUREKA, which encourages partnerships between industry, universities, and research institutes with the goal of commercializing research. See European Commission (2001) for a fuller treatment.

[42]  See Arunachalam (2002). The author notes that India's world share of scientific publications has fallen while South Korea and China have rapidly increased their growth and world share of scientific articles.

[43]  See chapter 2, "Higher Education in Science and Engineering."

[44]  Part of the increase reflects the creation of new countries, such as those formed from the former Soviet Union, during this period. The volume and share of international articles, however, has continued to rise since the early 1990s.

[45]  See De Solla Price (1986), pages 77–79.

[46]  The addition of Hong Kong's coauthored articles in 2001, which were counted separately from China's in 1994, slightly boosted China's share. Were Hong Kong included in China in 1994, however, China's rank would have been unchanged.

[47]  There is a moderately high correlation (r2 = 0.45) between the number of U.S. Ph.D.s awarded by country to foreign-born students in 1992–96 and the volume of papers coauthored by the United States and those countries in 1997–2001.

[48]  Twenty-six nations have formed since 1990, primarily as a result of the breakup of the former Soviet Union, but almost all were formed before 1994. Thus, new countries are not a factor in the expansion of collaboration on scientific articles between 1994 and 2001.

[49]  Citations are not a straightforward measure of quality because of authors' citation of their own previous articles; authors' citation of the work of colleagues, mentors, and friends; and a possible nonlinear relationship between a country's output of publications and citations to that output.

[50]  The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office evaluates patent applications on the basis of whether the invention is useful, novel, and nonobvious. The novelty requirement leads to references to other patents, scientific journal articles, meetings, books, industrial standards, technical disclosures, etc. These references are termed prior art.

[51]  Citation data must be interpreted with caution. The use of patenting varies by type of industry, and many citations on patent applications are to prior patents. Patenting is only one way that firms seek returns from innovation and thus reflects, in part, strategic and tactical decisions (e.g., laying the groundwork for cross-licensing arrangements). Most patents do not cover specific marketable products but might conceivably contribute in some fashion to one or more products in the future. (See Geisler 2001.)

[52]  Citations are references to S&E articles in journals indexed and tracked by the Institute for scientific Information in its Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index. Citation counts are based on articles published within a 12-year period that lagged 3 years behind the issuance of the patent. For example, citations for 2000 are references made in U.S. patents issued in 2000 to articles published in 1986–97.

[53]  See discussion in following section, "Patents Awarded to U.S. Universities."

[54]  U.S. performer data is restricted to U.S. citations of U.S. literature in the Institute for Scientific Information journal set.

[55]  Research articles also are increasingly cited in patents, attesting to the close relationship of some basic academic research to potential commercial application. See the previous section, "Citations in U.S. Patents to S&E Literature."

[56]  Other means of technology transfer are industry hiring of students and faculty, consulting relationships between faculty and industries, formation of firms by students or faculty, scientific publications, presentation at conferences, and informal communications between industrial and academic researchers.

[57]  The institution count is a conservative estimate because several university systems are counted as one institution, medical schools are often counted with their home institution, and universities are credited for patents on the basis of being the first-name assignee on the patent, which excludes patents where they share credit with another first-name assignee. Varying and changing university practices in assigning patents, such as to board of regents, individual campuses, or entities with or without affiliation to the university, also contribute to the lack of precision in the estimate. The data presented here have been aggregated consistently by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office since 1982.

[58]  The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 (Public Law 96–517) allows researchers or universities financed partially or completely by Federal funding to own their inventions.

[59]  Universities report data to AUTM on a fiscal-year basis, which varies across institutions.

[60]  Sum exceeds 100 percent because of rounding.

[61]  Licensing income for 2000 was boosted by several one-time payments, including a $200 million settlement of a patent infringement case, and by several institutions' cashing in of their equity held in licensee companies.

[62]  See Academic Research and Development Expenditures: Fiscal Year 2001 (NSF/SRS 2003). This is a rough estimate because of the lack of data on the R&D expenditures of a few smaller institutions.

[63]  Thursby et al. (2001) report that universities allocate an average of 40 percent of net income to the inventors, 16 percent to the inventor's department or school (often returned to the inventor's laboratory), 26 percent to central administrations, and 11 percent to technology transfer offices, with the remainder allocated to "other."


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National Science Board
National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics
Science and Engineering Indicators 2004
Arlington, VA (NSB 04-01) [May 2004]