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The Research Focus of Nations: Economic vs. Altruistic Motivations

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  • Richard Klavans
  • Kevin W Boyack

Abstract

What motivates the research strategies of nations and institutions? We suggest that research primarily serves two masters–altruism and economic growth. Some nations focus more research in altruistic (or non-economic) fields while others focus more research in fields associated with economic growth. What causes this difference? Are there characteristics that would suggest why a nation is more aligned with altruism or economic growth? To answer this question, we have identified nine major fields of research by analyzing the publication activity of 4429 institutions using Scopus data. Two fields of research are clearly altruistic (there is relatively little involvement by industry) and two fields are clearly aligned with economic growth. The altruistic vs. economic nature of nations based on their publication profiles across these fields is correlated with national indicators on wealth, education, capitalism, individualism, power, religion, and language. While previous research has suggested that national research strategy is aligned with national wealth, our analysis shows that national wealth is not highly correlated with the tradeoff between altruistic and economic motives. Instead, the tradeoff is largely captured by a culture of individualism. Accordingly, implications for national research strategies are discussed.

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  • Richard Klavans & Kevin W Boyack, 2017. "The Research Focus of Nations: Economic vs. Altruistic Motivations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(1), pages 1-27, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0169383
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0169383
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    2. Gangan Prathap, 2017. "Scientific wealth and inequality within nations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(2), pages 923-928, November.
    3. Julián D. Cortés & Daniel A. Andrade, 2022. "Winners and runners-up alike?—a comparison between awardees and special mention recipients of the most reputable science award in Colombia via a composite citation indicator," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-14, December.
    4. Klaus Jaffe & Enrique ter Horst & Laura H Gunn & Juan Diego Zambrano & German Molina, 2020. "A network analysis of research productivity by country, discipline, and wealth," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(5), pages 1-15, May.
    5. Julián D. Cortés, 2022. "Identifying the dissension in management and business research in Latin America and the Caribbean via co-word analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 7111-7125, December.
    6. John P A Ioannidis & Ioana-Alina Cristea & Kevin W Boyack, 2020. "Work honored by Nobel prizes clusters heavily in a few scientific fields," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-11, July.
    7. Zhang, Lin & ZHAO, Wenjing & Liu, Jianhua & Sivertsen, Gunnar & HUANG, Ying, 2020. "Do national funding organizations properly address the diseases with the highest burden? - Observations from China and the UK," SocArXiv ckpf8, Center for Open Science.

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