Monday, September 13, 2010

Researchers in Asian Countries Raise Their Scientific Profiles Worldwide - NYTimes.com

Researchers in Asian Countries Raise Their Scientific Profiles Worldwide - NYTimes.com: KUALA LUMPUR — While researchers at universities and institutes in many Western countries fret about budget pressures, scientists in many Asian nations are translating huge investments in research and development into impressive gains in research output.

The Asia-Pacific region increased its global share of published science articles from 13 percent in the early 1980s to just over 30 percent in 2009, according to the Thomson Reuters National Science Indicators, an annual database that records the number of articles published in about 12,000 internationally recognized journals. Meanwhile, the proportion of articles from the United States dropped to 28 percent in 2009, down from 40 percent in the early 1980s.