IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v15y2024i1d10.1038_s41467-024-51714-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The global geography of artificial intelligence in life science research

Author

Listed:
  • Leo Schmallenbach

    (University of Mannheim)

  • Till W. Bärnighausen

    (Heidelberg University
    Harvard University
    Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI))

  • Marc J. Lerchenmueller

    (University of Mannheim
    Leibniz Center for European Economic Research (ZEW))

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to transform medicine, but the geographic concentration of AI expertize may hinder its equitable application. We analyze 397,967 AI life science research publications from 2000 to 2022 and 14.5 million associated citations, creating a global atlas that distinguishes productivity (i.e., publications), quality-adjusted productivity (i.e., publications stratified by field-normalized rankings of publishing outlets), and relevance (i.e., citations). While Asia leads in total publications, Northern America and Europe contribute most of the AI research appearing in high-ranking outlets, generating up to 50% more citations than other regions. At the global level, international collaborations produce more impactful research, but have stagnated relative to national research efforts. Our findings suggest that greater integration of global expertize could help AI deliver on its promise and contribute to better global health.

Suggested Citation

  • Leo Schmallenbach & Till W. Bärnighausen & Marc J. Lerchenmueller, 2024. "The global geography of artificial intelligence in life science research," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-51714-x
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-51714-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51714-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-024-51714-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. João M. Fernandes & António Costa & Paulo Cortez, 2022. "Author placement in Computer Science: a study based on the careers of ACM Fellows," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(1), pages 351-368, January.
    2. Jonathan Adams, 2013. "The fourth age of research," Nature, Nature, vol. 497(7451), pages 557-560, May.
    3. Lerchenmueller, Marc J. & Sorenson, Olav, 2018. "The gender gap in early career transitions in the life sciences," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(6), pages 1007-1017.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laurent R. Bergé, 2017. "Network proximity in the geography of research collaboration," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 96(4), pages 785-815, November.
    2. Abramo, Giovanni & D'Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Di Costa, Flavia, 2021. "The scholarly impact of private sector research: A multivariate analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3).
    3. Julian Kolev & Yuly Fuentes-Medel & Fiona Murray, 2019. "Is Blinded Review Enough? How Gendered Outcomes Arise Even Under Anonymous Evaluation," NBER Working Papers 25759, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Svein Kyvik & Ingvild Reymert, 2017. "Research collaboration in groups and networks: differences across academic fields," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(2), pages 951-967, November.
    5. Jeffrey Demaine, 2022. "Fractionalization of research impact reveals global trends in university collaboration," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(5), pages 2235-2247, May.
    6. Maksym Polyakov & Morteza Chalak & Md. Sayed Iftekhar & Ram Pandit & Sorada Tapsuwan & Fan Zhang & Chunbo Ma, 2018. "Authorship, Collaboration, Topics, and Research Gaps in Environmental and Resource Economics 1991–2015," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 71(1), pages 217-239, September.
    7. Zsolt Kohus & Márton Demeter & László Kun & Eszter Lukács & Katalin Czakó & Gyula Péter Szigeti, 2022. "A Study of the Relation between Byline Positions of Affiliated/Non-Affiliated Authors and the Scientific Impact of European Universities in Times Higher Education World University Rankings," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-14, October.
    8. Abramo, Giovanni & D'Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Grilli, Leonardo, 2021. "The effects of citation-based research evaluation schemes on self-citation behavior," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4).
    9. A. Velez-Estevez & P. García-Sánchez & J. A. Moral-Munoz & M. J. Cobo, 2022. "Why do papers from international collaborations get more citations? A bibliometric analysis of Library and Information Science papers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 7517-7555, December.
    10. Wenwen Shen & Yuankun Nie & Chao Long & Zibo Song & Qian Zhang & Decai Tang, 2022. "Research on the Mechanism of Collaborative Value Co-Creation of Enterprise–Science Community: A Case Study Based on the Green Brand Maoduoli," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-19, November.
    11. Graf, Holger & Kalthaus, Martin, 2018. "International research networks: Determinants of country embeddedness," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(7), pages 1198-1214.
    12. Richard B. Freeman, 2015. "Immigration, International Collaboration, and Innovation: Science and Technology Policy in the Global Economy," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 153-175.
    13. Diego Kozlowski & Jennifer Dusdal & Jun Pang & Andreas Zilian, 2021. "Semantic and relational spaces in science of science: deep learning models for article vectorisation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(7), pages 5881-5910, July.
    14. Martin Kalthaus, 2020. "Knowledge recombination along the technology life cycle," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 643-704, July.
    15. Pierre Pelletier & Kevin Wirtz, 2023. "Sails and Anchors: The Complementarity of Exploratory and Exploitative Scientists in Knowledge Creation," Papers 2312.10476, arXiv.org.
    16. Xuli Tang & Xin Li & Feicheng Ma, 2022. "Internationalizing AI: evolution and impact of distance factors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(1), pages 181-205, January.
    17. Madsen, Emil Bargmann & Aagaard, Kaare, 2020. "Concentration of Danish research funding on individual researchers and research topics: Patterns and potential drivers," SocArXiv j874c_v1, Center for Open Science.
    18. Dezhong Duan & Ying Chen & Yang Zhang, 2020. "Who is contributing? Scientific collaborations on COVID-19," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(8), pages 1487-1489, November.
    19. Annika Rickne & Martin Ruef & Karl Wennberg, 2018. "The socially and spatially bounded relationships of entrepreneurial activity: Olav Sorenson—recipient of the 2018 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 515-525, October.
    20. Zhang, Yang & Wang, Yang & Du, Haifeng & Havlin, Shlomo, 2024. "Delayed citation impact of interdisciplinary research," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-51714-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.