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The Scientific Competitiveness of Nations

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  • Giulio Cimini
  • Andrea Gabrielli
  • Francesco Sylos Labini

Abstract

We use citation data of scientific articles produced by individual nations in different scientific domains to determine the structure and efficiency of national research systems. We characterize the scientific fitness of each nation—that is, the competitiveness of its research system—and the complexity of each scientific domain by means of a non-linear iterative algorithm able to assess quantitatively the advantage of scientific diversification. We find that technological leading nations, beyond having the largest production of scientific papers and the largest number of citations, do not specialize in a few scientific domains. Rather, they diversify as much as possible their research system. On the other side, less developed nations are competitive only in scientific domains where also many other nations are present. Diversification thus represents the key element that correlates with scientific and technological competitiveness. A remarkable implication of this structure of the scientific competition is that the scientific domains playing the role of “markers” of national scientific competitiveness are those not necessarily of high technological requirements, but rather addressing the most “sophisticated” needs of the society.

Suggested Citation

  • Giulio Cimini & Andrea Gabrielli & Francesco Sylos Labini, 2014. "The Scientific Competitiveness of Nations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(12), pages 1-11, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0113470
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0113470
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    2. Cesar A. Hidalgo & Ricardo Hausmann, 2009. "The Building Blocks of Economic Complexity," Papers 0909.3890, arXiv.org.
    3. Matthieu Cristelli & Andrea Gabrielli & Andrea Tacchella & Guido Caldarelli & Luciano Pietronero, 2013. "Measuring the Intangibles: A Metrics for the Economic Complexity of Countries and Products," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(8), pages 1-20, August.
    4. David A. King, 2004. "The scientific impact of nations," Nature, Nature, vol. 430(6997), pages 311-316, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. Tea Golob & Matej Makarovič & Jana Suklan, 2016. "National Development Generates National Identities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(2), pages 1-14, February.

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