GLOBAL RESEARCH REPORT

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND MARCH 2010 JONATHAN ADAMS CHRISTOPHER KING BERENIKA WEBSTER

EVIDENCE

THE AUTHORS Dr. Jonathan Adams is Director, Research Evaluation, at Evidence, a Thomson Reuters business. He was a founding Director of Evidence Ltd, the UK specialist on research performance analysis and interpretation. Christopher King is Editor of Science Watch (ScienceWatch.com), a Thomson Reuters newsletter and web resource tracking trends and performance in basic research. Dr. Berenika Webster is Strategic Business Manager for Australia and New Zealand at Thomson Reuters.

This report has been published by Evidence, a Thomson Reuters business 103 Clarendon Road, Leeds LS2 9DF, UK T/ +44 113 384 5680 F/ +44 113 384 5874 E/ [email protected] W/ http://science.thomsonreuters.com/evidence

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GLOBAL RESEARCH REPORT

GLOBAL RESEARCH REPORT: AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND: MARCH 2010

INTRODUCTION This report is part of a series launched by Thomson Reuters to inform policy makers about the landscape and dynamics of the global research base. Previous reports examined Brazil, Russia, India, and China: the “BRIC” group of nations which are fast becoming major global economic powers. Those reports focused on the BRICs’ economic development and the extent to which this is reflected in their research and innovation performance. This report turns to two countries in the Asia Pacific region — Australia and New Zealand. Both are English-speaking countries with traditionally strong cultural and economic ties to the UK and USA, and traditional economies based on natural resources and agriculture. A recent OECD report on the New Zealand innovation system noted: “Historically, the NZ economy has been shaped by exploitation of natural resources through agriculture, forestry and fishing and associated processing and service activities. More recently, agro-food-related biotechnology, tourism and film making have emerged as new industries able to exploit natural comparative advantage.” i Innovation is a strategic priority for research funding in both countries. • Established in 2002, and revised in mid2009, National Research Priorities identify “environmental sustainability, promotion and maintenance of good health, frontier technologies for transforming industries and safeguarding Australia” as areas of research focus for Australian government.ii Another policy initiative sets out a framework to guide the development of Australia’s innovation system over the next ten years iii while the Super Science Initiative will add $1.1 billion, over next four years, to support Australian research in select areas such as climate change, biotechnology, nanotechnology, space science, astronomy and marine science. iv

Alongside targeted funding is focused evaluation. Both countries have embarked on national exercises to cyclically and systematically evaluate the quality and impact of their research through Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) and the New Zealand Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF). vi National innovation systems are backed not only by university research but also by a complex of other, mission-oriented institutions. In Australia this includes the 39 universities, four scientific research agencies — Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (founded in 1916 under the name of Advisory Council of Science and Industry), the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (established in 1949), the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (founded in 1961), and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (founded in 1972) – and over 40 Medical Research Institutes. The University of Sydney is the oldest Australian higher education institution founded in 1850. The research system in New Zealand is supported by eight universities and eight Crown Research Institutes. The CRIs were formed in 1992 from the former Department of Scientific and Industrial Research which was founded in 1926 and worked mostly in the agricultural sector. The University of Otago was founded in 1869, just prior to the creation of the federal University of New Zealand in 1870. University College Auckland was founded in 1883. Both countries have therefore enjoyed a very long history of well-founded research, a diverse research base with universities and dedicated mission-led research organizations, a strong base in natural resources and excellent historical links to major research powers in Europe and North America.

• In New Zealand, research into high-tech platforms, future foods, innovation in health delivery, environmental sensing for resource management, renewable energy and sustainable urban planning and development has been targeted for funding. v • Both Australia and New Zealand are committed to a bid to host the $2.5 billion international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Project.

GLOBAL RESEARCH REPORT

RESEARCH AND COLLABORATION IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND The recent changes documented by analyzing Thomson Reuters data on the research portfolios of Australia and New Zealand present an interesting contrast to the picture seen in our reports on the BRIC group of emerging economies. There are marked historical parallels in the research bases of the two countries... However, while in Australia that increase surpasses that of similar OECD countries, this is not the case with New Zealand.

DATA ON RESEARCH Volume and subject area analyses used the 2008 editions of the Thomson Reuters National Science Indicators. Collaboration analyses were carried out using Research Performance Profiles data for Australia and New Zealand in InCites™, the new webbased platform for research evaluation from Thomson Reuters. Database years were used to delineate years and only article, note and review document types were considered.

GLOBAL RESEARCH REPORT

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS VOLUME AND GLOBAL SHARE OF PUBLICATIONS

Australian share of world publication output has been growing steadily from 2.85% in 1999 to reach 3.18% in 2008. The New Zealand share of global output saw a more modest increase from 0.57% of world publications in 1999 to 0.59% in 2008.

FIGURE 1

Australia’s published outputs are growing at a faster pace than of the comparator countries. This is not the case in New Zealand, where the volume of outputs grows slower than in the comparator countries. 90,000

50,000

UK

80,000

45,000

France

40,000

Canada

70,000

35,000

60,000

Australia

30,000

Belguim

50,000 25,000 40,000

Italy

20,000 Spain

30,000

15,000 Portugal

20,000

10,000

10,000

5,000

New Zealand Ireland

0

0 1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

Source: Web of ScienceSM

FIGURE 2

10.0 9.0

Between 1999 and 2008, the volume of Australian publications has risen annually by an average of nearly 5%, to reach over 36,000 publications in 2008. This growth is higher than that of other selected OECD countries and of World, OECD and EU-27 publication averages. The volume of New Zealand publications has grown at the average annual percentage growth rate of 4.3% from 1999 to reach nearly 7,000 publications in 2008. This rate of growth is somewhat lower than that of other, comparable, OECD countries, but higher than an average OECD, EU-27 or World growth. Figure 2 shows the average annual percentage growth of publications (AAPG) between 1999 and 2008 for Australia, New Zealand, selected OECD-member countries and the average for the World, OECD and EU-27.

8.0 7.0 6.0 5.0 4.0 3.0 2.0 1.0

UK

ce Fr an

CD OE

7 -2 EU

W or ld

d

da Ca na

la n

Ne

w

Ze a

lg iu m

Be

Ita ly

lia tra

ai

n

Au s

Sp

la nd Ire

tu

ga l

0.0

Po r

Average Annual Percentage Growth AAPG

Publication volume for Australia and New Zealand has risen annually at an average rate of 5% and 4.3% respectively between 1999 and 2008. Both countries’ rate of growth is higher than that of World, OECD and EU-27 publication averages.

Figure 1 shows the growth outputs over the last ten years for Australia (plotted against the left-hand axis) and New Zealand (right-hand axis). Each focus country is compared with other OECD countries with similar GERD to GDP ratio. For Australia, these countries were Belgium, Canada, France and the UK; for New Zealand, the comparators, plotted against the right hand access, were Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

Source: Web of ScienceSM

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FIELDS OF RESEARCH Apart from tracking the overall and relative volume of publications from Australia, we can also analyze the publication data by fields of research. Thomson Reuters has two main systems by which journals are mapped to disciplines. These are the Essential Science Indicators™ with 22 broad subject categories and Web of ScienceSM with 250 more finely grained subject categories. The analyses in Tables 1 and 2 below show the volume of Australia and New Zealand’s publications, their share of world outputs, and growth. The first analysis (based on the Essential Science Indicators fields) shows the volume, share and growth of Australian and New Zealand publications in selected ten subject fields for two time periods: 1999-2003 and 2004-2008. The analysis shows both the intensity of research across subject fields (as demonstrated by share of world publications) and change in volume of outputs. For instance, because of its traditional focus, Australia’s share of publications in Environment/Ecology was stronger than its overall share and that share rose from 4.9% to 5.1% of world outputs. Other areas of strong performance for Australia are Geosciences and Plant & Animal Science. Interestingly, the subject areas where Australia has grown its outputs most are Computer Science (volume growth of 63%, — not shown in Table 1), Materials Science (50% — not shown in Table 1), Environment/ Ecology (42%) and Clinical Medicine (38%). The increases in these areas ally closely with the National Research Priorities. In New Zealand, research outputs concentrate in the areas of Agricultural Science, Environment /Ecology and Plant & Animal Sciences. The areas of biggest growth in volume of outputs are noted for Computer Sciences at 82% (not shown in Table 1), Biology & Biochemistry (38%), Immunology (38% — not shown

TABLE 1

Thomson Reuters data showing volume, world share and percentage change of volume for Australia and New Zealand publications in ten selected subject fields. Field

1999-2003

2004-2008

Number of Publications

Number of Publications

2004-08 % World

Growth

AUSTRALIA Environment/Ecology

4,738

6,735

5.11

42.1

Geosciences

5,611

6,802

4.99

21.2

Plant & Animal Science

11,327

13,251

4.9

17.0

Space Science

2,139

2,630

4.41

23.0

Agricultural Sciences

3,131

4,015

4.03

28.2

Immunology

2,186

2,345

3.9

7.3

Clinical Medicine

24,325

33,632

3.34

38.3

Microbiology

2,003

2,474

3.04

23.5

Biology & Biochemistry

6,801

7,709

2.83

13.4

Neuroscience & Behavior

3,081

4,081

2.79

32.5

Agricultural Sciences

1,269

1,500

1.5

18.2

Environment/Ecology

1,622

1,954

1.48

20.5

Plant & Animal Science

3,547

3,804

1.41

7.2

Geosciences

1,336

1,707

1.25

27.8

Pharmacology & Toxicology

600

745

0.82

24.2

Microbiology

350

471

0.58

34.6

Biology & Biochemistry

1,105

1,529

0.56

38.4

Mathematics

565

653

0.52

15.6

Clinical Medicine

4,043

5,104

0.51

26.2

Neuroscience & Behavior

507

696

0.48

37.3

NEW ZEALAND

Source: Web of ScienceSM

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in Table 1), and Neurosciences & Behavior (37%). This is consistent with New Zealand’s government’s research, science and technology agenda. However, we also observe a drop of New Zealand publication share in the world rankings (e.g. from 18th in Environment/Ecology to 23rd) in all subject areas between the 1999-2003 and 2004-2008 time periods. Table 1 shows volume, world share and percentage change of volume of Australian and New Zealand publications in ten selected subject fields. The subject fields in which Australia and New Zealand produce more publications than its overall share are grouped at the top of the table and those with the least concentration of research are at the bottom. A closer analysis of the areas of research concentration is shown in Table 2. Here, we focus on the 15 Web of Science categories in which Australia and New Zealand have the highest world share of outputs, together with the volume of publications produced between 2004 and 2008. Only fields with at least 100 publications were considered. For Australia, as expected, subject areas relating to ecology, agriculture and natural resources are prominent. Less predictably, we note that Australia produces over 8% of world outputs in Hospitality, Leisure and Sport Tourism and over 7% of world outputs in Rehabilitation and Sport Sciences. This is a marker of its development of the tourism industry and its national commitment to sporting achievement. The distribution of publications across Web of Science categories confirms the concentration of New Zealand research in earth sciences, biology and agriculture. For instance, in Geology, New Zealand produces 3.08% of global outputs — five times its overall average. TABLE 2

Volume of publications produced between 2004 and 2008, together with percentage of world share, for 15 Web of Science categories in which Australia and New Zealand have the highest percentage of world share. AUSTRALIA Field

NEW ZEALAND Number of Publications 2004-2008

% World share

Hosp Leisure & Sport Tourism

248

8.63

Mineralogy

787

Marine & Freshwater Biol

Number of Publications 2004-2008

% World share

Geology

346

3.08

8.62

Geography

230

2.50

3,328

8.01

Oceanography

573

2.45

Fisheries

1,570

7.84

Geography Physical

325

2.40

Agriculture, Multidisciplinary

1,676

7.62

Fisheries

474

2.37

Substance Abuse

786

7.61

Marine & Freshwater Biology

975

2.35

Rehabilitation

1,450

7.57

Agriculture Multidisciplinary

471

2.14

Ecology

4,636

7.54

Horticulture

256

2.09

582

7.49

Ecology

1,283

2.09

2,081

7.40

Soil Sciences

324

1.95

Industrial Relations & Labor

152

7.32

Biodiversity Conservation

222

1.94

Biodiversity Conservation

828

7.25

Mat Science Paper & Wood

106

1.85

Oceanography

1,678

7.19

Evolutionary Biology

347

1.77

Evolutionary Biology

1,326

6.77

Forestry

265

1.71

Transportation

245

6.75

Zoology

733

1.69

Limnology Sport Sciences

Field

Source: Web of ScienceSM

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INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION International collaboration can be an important indicator of the impact of a country’s research. Levels of international collaboration can be measured by analyzing authors’ institutional affiliations provided on publications. Table 3 highlights the levels of Australia and New Zealand’s international collaborations. It shows numbers and percentages of publications with overseas addresses. The collaborations are shown for two time periods: 1999-2003 and 2004-2008. The table shows not the most frequent countries but, to focus on links and regions of particular policy significance, a selection from the top 20 collaborating countries where these show notable changes. The USA has traditionally been the biggest contributor to Australian publications — nearly 14% of all Australian publications have a co-author based in a US institution. There is a sizable increase in collaboration with China — rising from 2.3% to 4.4% of all Australian outputs. There has been sustained collaboration with some other countries within the Asia Pacific region (e.g. New Zealand, as well as India and Singapore). However, China’s rise contrasts markedly with Japan which has dropped below both France and New Zealand in relative share.

TABLE 3

Select international collaborations, by country, for Australia and New Zealand for two time periods: 1999-2003 and 2004-2008. The USA remains the biggest contributor for both countries, but collaboration within the Asia Pacific region is notably changing. Shaded rows illustrate such changes. AUSTRALIA Rank

Collaborating Country

Number of co-authored papers, 1999-2003

% of total Australia, 1999-2003 12.7

Collaborating Country

Number of co-authored papers, 2004-2008

% of total Australia, 2004-2008

USA

20,677

13.8

1

USA

14,461

2

UK

8,323

7.3

UK

12,905

8.6

3

Germany

3,754

3.3

China

6,654

4.4

5

Japan

2,687

2.4

Canada

5,301

3.5

6

China

2,649

2.3

France

3,938

2.6

7

France

2,379

2.1

New Zealand

3,603

2.4

8

New Zealand

2,340

2.0

Japan

3,578

2.4

13

Singapore

880

0.8

Spain

1,704

1.1

14

Denmark

783

0.7

Singapore

1,615

1.1

17

Belgium

677

0.6

India

1,233

0.8

Number of co-authored papers, 1999-2003

% of total New Zealand, 1999-2003

Number of co-authored papers, 2004-2008

% of total New Zealand, 2004-2008

NEW ZEALAND Rank

Collaborating Country

Collaborating Country

1

USA

3,212

14.0

USA

4,613

15.9

2

Australia

2,340

10.2

Australia

3,603

12.4

3

UK

2,001

8.7

UK

3,427

11.8

6

Japan

451

2.0

France

740

2.6

7

France

384

1.7

China

656

2.3

8

China

329

1.4

Japan

602

2.1

13

Switzerland

195

0.8

Spain

322

1.1

16

Spain

133

0.6

Singapore

261

0.9

17

Singapore

132

0.6

Norway

230

0.8

18

Norway

98

0.4

Ireland

218

0.8

Source: Web of ScienceSM

GLOBAL RESEARCH REPORT

As was the case with Australia, so for New Zealand it is the USA that has been the biggest contributor to shared publications — nearly 16% of all New Zealand publications now have a co-author from the USA. Equally expected is the dominant role of Australia as a major regional partner: 12.4% of New Zealand papers are published with an Australian co-author. Collaboration with Europe typically rose by about 40% on a country by country basis, but Spain and Norway are two countries with which New Zealand increased its share of publications the most — nearly doubling share. The percentage of co-authored papers rose from 0.58 to 1.10 for Spain and 0.43 to 0.79 for Norway. Table 4 shows international institutions with which Australian and New Zealand researchers published frequently between 2004 and 2008. In the case of Australia, 6 out of 10 institutions are from the Asia Pacific region. The Chinese Academy of Sciences was the biggest partner, with nearly 1,300 publications in the five-year period. An analysis of institutions with which New Zealand researchers publish their papers reveals that of 10 top international collaborators, seven are institutions in Australia and one each from the UK, Canada and Asia. Apart from the institutions in Asia, all other frequent collaboration links were with institutions in other Englishspeaking countries.

TABLE 4

International institutions collaborating frequently with Australia and New Zealand, for the time period of 2004-2008. Regional collaboration (institutions within the Asia Pacific region) seems to be the primary factor for non-English-speaking partnerships. Australia

Number of co-authored papers (2004-2008)

Avg. Cites/Paper

New Zealand

Number of co-authored papers (2004-2008)

Avg. Cites/Paper

Chinese Acad Sci

1,269

8.61

Univ Sydney

404

7.47

Univ Cambridge

1,026

18.67

Univ Queensland

387

5.89

Univ Oxford

990

16.47

Univ Melbourne

367

10.05

Harvard Univ

838

19.55

Monash Univ

232

5.42

Natl Univ Singapore

785

5.14

Australian Natl Univ

223

6.48

Univ Auckland

779

6.71

Univ Oxford

215

14.5

Univ Toronto

655

11.31

Univ Victoria, Canada

197

5.46

Univ Otago

624

7.37

Univ New S Wales

187

5.86

Univ Tokyo

541

18.77

Univ Western Australia

167

8.17

Univ Hong Kong

455

8.67

Natl Univ Singapore

164

3.95

Source: Web of ScienceSM

GLOBAL RESEARCH REPORT

SUMMARY OVERVIEW Australia and New Zealand are emerging from a past linked to other Anglophone nations around the globe, but they bring a strong research track-record in natural resources that may make them excellent complementary partners to the emerging nations of the Asia-Pacific region: India and China have clear strengths in physical sciences and engineering; South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan have cutting– edge technology.

This is a reflection of the significance that these discipline areas now have for many countries’ research policy, with climate change being a common priority. The historical strength of Australia and New Zealand should give them a strong platform to participate in these debates, but they need to build on that competitive strength. Their shares in research fields among the physical sciences and engineering is usually very much less.

The recent changes documented by analyzing Thomson Reuters data on the research portfolios of Australia and New Zealand present an interesting contrast to the picture seen in our reports on the BRIC group of emerging economies. There are marked historical parallels in the research bases of the two countries: being Anglophone, university based and with a strong tradition of research linked to natural resources. Our analyses show a general increase in research output productivity. However, while in Australia that increase surpasses that of similar OECD countries, this is not the case with New Zealand. New Zealand will need to examine whether shifts to ‘farm gate’ research priorities necessarily support long-term outcomes.

Researchers in both Australia and New Zealand have been increasing their share of publications co-authored with international colleagues. We also observe a shift in the geographic focus of these collaborations. While such counties as Russia or South Africa decrease in importance, there are marked increases in collaboration with Spain and Switzerland, and more importantly with China and India.

Concentration of research around the areas of environment and ecology, biology and agriculture, earth sciences and resources correlates with the emphases of the national research funding agencies priorities for these areas. However, despite increases in the volume of publications in the relevant disciplines, both countries are losing ground in relation to overall global increases.

Regional collaboration (within Asia Pacific) is likely to be an increasingly important, even dominant, policy issue for both Australia and New Zealand. Their research competences complement the technological strength and capacity of China and India. Their global connections are also distinctive. It seems reasonable to suggest that, if they seek to strengthen their collaboration with new, rather than historical, partners then they will add to the diversity of both disciplinary and cultural approaches in the Asia-Pacific region. The challenge to the trans-Atlantic research axis keeps on growing.

REFERENCES i

OECD Reviews of Innovation Policy: New Zealand, OECD 2007. 

ii

T  he National Research Priorities and their Associated Priority Goals. (http://www.innovation.gov.au/ Section/AboutDIISR/FactSheets/Pages/NationalResearchPrioritiesFactSheet.aspx).

iii

P  owering ideas: An Innovation Agenda for the 21st Century Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2009 (http://www.innovation.gov.au/innovationreview/Pages/home.aspx).

iv

Super  Science Initiative. Ministry for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Media Release, May 2009 (http://minister.innovation.gov.au/Carr/Pages/SUPERSCIENCEINITIATIVE.aspx).

v

F  rom Strength to Strength – Government’s Agenda for New Zealand Research, Science and Technology, MORST, 2008 (http://www.morst.govt.nz/Documents/publications/policy/Governments-Agenda-for-RST. pdf).

vi

In NZ it is Performance Based Research Assessment Framework (PBRF) and in Australia — Excellence in Research in Australia (ERA) initiative.

vii

T  he National Research Priorities and their Associated Priority Goals. (http://www.innovation.gov.au/ Section/AboutDIISR/FactSheets/Pages/NationalResearchPrioritiesFactSheet.aspx).

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