Sci-Bytes> Science in Australia, 2006-10
Week of September 18, 2011
Australia’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 Reuters database. Also, Australia’s relative citation impact compared to the world average in each field, in percentage terms.
| Field | % papers fr. Australia | Impact vs. world |
|---|---|---|
| Social Sciences | 5.71 | -1 |
| Economics & Business | 5.47 | -18 |
| Psychiatry/Psychology | 5.33 | +5 |
| Environment/Ecology | 5.31 | +26 |
| Geosciences | 4.95 | +34 |
| Plant & Animal Sciences | 4.74 | +35 |
| Space Science | 4.50 | +29 |
| Immunology | 4.00 | +16 |
| Agricultural Sciences | 3.79 | +18 |
| Clinical Medicine | 3.54 | +26 |
| Australia's overall percent share, all fields: 3.18 | ||
| Neuroscience & Behavior | 3.10 | Even |
| Microbiology | 3.05 | +27 |
| Molecular Biology & Genetics | 2.89 | +18 |
| Biology & Biochemistry | 2.88 | +17 |
| Computer Science | 2.71 | +6 |
| Engineering | 2.30 | +15 |
| Pharmacology & Toxicology | 2.23 | +23 |
| Mathematics | 2.09 | +12 |
| Materials Science | 1.97 | +22 |
| Physics | 1.81 | +36 |
| Chemistry | 1.68 | +18 |
Between 2006 and 2010, Thomson Reuters indexed 171,989 papers that listed at least one author address in Australia. Of those papers, the highest percentage appeared in journals indexed under the main heading of social sciences, followed by economics & business. As the right-hand column shows, the impact (citations per paper) figure for social-science papers featuring Australia-based authors was just 1% below the world average for the field (2.04 citations per paper for Australia versus the world mark of 2.06 citations). In all but two of the other fields shown, Australian impact surpassed the world figure—notably in physics (36% above the world mark), plant & animal sciences (+35%), and geosciences (+34%). In neuroscience & behavior, Australian researchers happened to match the world average precisely: 8.17 cites per paper.
SOURCE: InCitesTM Global Comparisons, Thomson Reuters.
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