UK research retains high impact despite lower spending, claims new report
Despite lower investment than its competitors, the global impact of UK research is still consistently high and leads the world in certain areas, according to a new report commissioned by the Office of Science and Technology (OST). The report is the third in a series designed to measure the relative international performance of the UK science and engineering base for the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), and 'confirms the UK's strong relative international performance in terms of achievement, productivity and efficiency'. Using an established set of indicators and comparisons with 25 other countries, the authors found that the UK achieves a more consistent performance across different fields than most countries, and that its strongest area overall is the natural sciences. And while the UK ranks 17th out of 21 countries for which data are available in terms of research spending as a percentage of GDP, its global share of journal article publications is ranked second behind only the US. 'A recent plateau in publication output appears to be consolidation rather than actual contraction,' the report adds. The country is also ranked second to the US for citations, accounting for around 12 per cent of the world share. In ten key research fields, the UK is again ranked second behind the US in all but mathematics, where it is third, and physical science and engineering, where it is fourth. In terms of research impact, the UK leads the world in preclinical health and biological sciences, while the country's share of PhD awards is broadly the same as other countries with the exception of Germany, which has many more. 'The UK has a lead position in G8 countries and is third overall behind Switzerland and the Netherlands on relative productivity (papers published per researcher) and effectiveness (citations acquired per researcher),' the report notes. 'Indeed, its slight fall in papers but gain on citations suggests a shift to quality over quantity.' The report goes on to highlight two areas of potential concern for the UK. First, the availability of highly skilled people with research training is lower than among its competitors, although the growing number of researchers as a proportion of R&D personal may hint at increasing research professionalisation. In addition, the UK's performance in terms of business investment in research is weakening, and has fallen behind the average level of its competitors. 'At the level of research fields, the fall is most noticeable in the natural sciences, its core area of research strength,' the report concludes. UK Science and Innovation Minister Lord Sainsbury said: 'This report shows the continued strength of UK science, not just in specific areas, but across the full range of scientific disciplines from engineering and physical sciences right through to the arts and humanities.' A spokesperson for Research Councils UK, Professor Julia Goodfellow, welcomed the findings but warned against complacency: 'It is important that both Government and private sector investment in research and development grows in the future and we invest in growing capacity in areas where we currently have skills shortages.'
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