Thomson Reuters, a US-based provider of information for healthcare professionals, has released a study that says the average 'impact' of research originating in the UK has risen, surpassing that of the research colossus US. This is despite a relative decrease in research output and private-sector research investment in the UK. At the same time, while the UK investment in R&D had risen by about one-third in real terms between 1991 and 2009, the nation has not kept pace with the increase in R&D investments on a global scale.
The study, "Global Research Report: United Kingdom", found that while the UK's research output (the volume of published research as a share of the world total) has fallen over the past two decades — thanks in part by extraordinary research growth in new research economies such as China — the impact of UK research (the average number of citations per published work) has in the past five years come to surpass that of the US.
Impact is seen as a widely recognised indicator of research influence and quality. Until 2006, the US had stood alone atop the research impact rankings. From 1991 to 2005, the UK had been second to the US while still leading Germany, France, Japan and China in relative impact.
In addition to analysing Thomson Reuters citation data, the study uses for the first time data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) to paint a complete picture of the UK scientific research landscape.
The UK's share of Gross Expenditure on R&D fell from 5.3 percent of the total global investment to approximately 4.2 percent of total global investment in 2008. By comparison, the US investment is approximately 42 percent of the total global investment - 10 times that of the UK.
Beyond assessing the volume and impact of research, the Global Research Report details the growing research competency of the UK workforce, the rise in postgraduate education enrolment, and the lagging industrial application of research. The study is part of the Global Research Report series from Thomson Reuters that illustrates the changing landscape and dynamics of scientific research around the world.
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