Relations Between National Research Investment Input and Publication Output: Application to an American Paradox R. D. Shelton Sponsored by a sabbatical from Loyola and NSF Grant ENG

What’s the Problem? “European Paradox” is the perceived failure of Europe to cash in on its leadership of science publishing I use "American Paradox" to mean the long term decline in U.S. share of science publishing, despite world-leading investments in R&D, particularly as that decline has become worse “Why” is today’s subject The methods are also useful for other countries; e.g. the EU is developing the same syndrome

The American Paradox: Declining SCI Paper Shares Despite Huge R&D Investments (GERD*) *Gross domestic expenditures on R&D (OECD Constant $ PPP), paper share from NSI CD Paper Share % NSF analyzed paradox for 6 years. GERD $Billions

EU Recently Developed the Same Syndrome Paper Share % GERD $Billions

Outline 1.Is it just that the SCI is a rubber ruler? (Hint: no) 2.Which inputs are most important: a regression approach (Hint: look for the money, but not just any money.) 3.A theory that can account for U.S. (and EU) decline, and forecast the future (Hint: it's simple, m = kw)

1. Is it Just That the SCI is a Rubber Ruler? Hypothesis: In response to criticism that it is biased toward English language and the U.S., the Science Citation Index may have changed to be less favorable to the U.S. This could account for some of the rapid decline in U.S. publication since Method: For a sample of 8 fields, partition their journals into 2 sets: New journals added to the SCI after 1994, and Old added before. Then measure U.S. share of each journal to see if difference between Old and New is significant

Example Analysis of U.S. Share in SCI

Sample of 8 Fields of Science Working paper at

Conclusions from Bias Study In some fields (space science, math, and microbiology) New journals were much less favorable to the U.S. But, in some fields the opposite was true In aggregate over 8 fields the change in bias was too small to account for the sharp changes in national shares Most share differences between Old and New journals are not statistically significant Therefore, hypothesis is not proven, and is unlikely over 24 fields in the National Science Indicator CD Thus the shifts in national shares are real, and are probably not an artifact of the SCI database

2. Since Total GERD Is Not Increasing U.S. Papers, Which Inputs are Most Important? Multiple Linear Regression Can Help Identify Which National Publication Systems (The Black Box) Resources In Papers Out

A Simple Regression Scattergram for 1999 This example has only one IV, of course. Regression Line: Papers99 = GERD99 Slope is about 1 paper / $1 million, and R = U.S. and Japan are far off the graph to the upper right

Multiple Linear Regressions: Drilling Down with 2 Independent Variables (IV) per Level DV is papers out. Significance level is 0.05, but IV1 is always very significant (Sig ). R > 0.9 always. Level1. IV1 = GERD (Total national R&D) IV2 = Number of Researchers (not significant) Level2. IV1 = Government Investment part of GERD IV2 = Private Sector Investment (not significant) Level3. IV1 = Civil Part of Government Investment IV2 = Government Defense Investment (less significant and a smaller coefficient) Details in table in Appendix

Regression Findings: In Producing Papers… Research investments are much more important than the number of researchers. Government investments are much more important than those from industry. Government investments in non-defense sectors are somewhat more important than their investment in defense. For 2003 the ratio of their IV coefficients has increased to 2. Not surprising to bibliometricians, but regression quantifies these statements. Causality can’t be proven, but strong and weak associations can be found.

Is This Why the EU Passed the U.S. in Science Publishing in 1995? (Greater Government Non-Defense R&D) May account for EU gaining on U.S. before 1995, but we still need to find why loss of U.S. share accelerated then, here shown as leveling of US Papers curve

Conclusions from Regression Money is the key input variable, but some types of investments are more effective U.S. Government investments are not as efficient at producing papers as in the EU: too much defense R&D, and not enough NSF These inefficiencies may account for the EU passing the U.S. in papers, but are not large enough to account for the recent sharp decline in U.S. paper share

3. A Theory That Can Account for U.S. Decline, and Predict its (Bleak) Future Since we can’t blame the recent sharp decline in U.S. share on a rubber ruler from SCI or inefficient allocations by the U.S., we have to cast a wider net– overseas, in fact. We will look at four regions: US, EU-15, "Asian Tigers" (China, Taiwan, S. Korea, and Singapore), and rest of the world (ROW). Usually the “world” will be the OECD countries, including affiliates.

More Detailed Model of Publication System (Inside the Black Box) $ Inputs US EU AT ROW Papers Published National Research Systems -- Fairly Independent Highly Interdependent Paper Selection Journal Editors g1g1 p1p1 G (total)P (total) w i = g i /G GERD share m i = p i /P Paper share

Search for a Model of System Since SCI does not increase P much in a year, total papers is almost a zero-sum game, and is one for share m i (on a fractional count basis) Thus competition with other nations strongly influences U.S. success We know that the critical input is money, but we need a U.S. series that declines to get a strong positive R with declining U.S. paper share

US GERD has risen, but others have risen faster. Is the shape of this curve familiar? An Input Series that Involves Both the Investments of the U.S. and Others.

US Paper Share Depends More on Its Share of GERD Than Its Total GERD

m i is share of papers published (fractional basis) w i is the share of GERD for the OECD Group k i is a "constant" of proportionality; it differs by country. k i is also the efficiency of country i in producing papers per $1 million in GERD, normalized by the OECD average efficiency. For data in a single year the equation is an identity, but it is most useful over a range of years when k i is approximately constant A Simple Model for Country i m i = k i w i

Since 1998, k i Has Been Fairly Constant EU is about 40% more efficient; AT is about 40% less efficient. Source for papers: NSF S&EI 2006 (fractional counts)

Input Variable w i for m i = k i w i U.S. GERD share declined because of aggressive investments by the Asian Tigers. ROW is fairly flat. Since these add to 100%, U.S. and EU both lost GERD share to AT. Can you forecast what is going to happen next?

Paper Share Fractional Count Lately, EU shows the same decline as U.S.

The Future? Asian Tigers have announced plans to continue to rapidly increase R&D investment. The American Competitiveness Initiative is small compared to Asian plans--no net increase EU seems to be faltering in meeting Lisbon goals Thus, U.S. and EU investment shares will probably continue to be lost to the Asian Tigers Based on the theory here, leadership of science publication will probably continue to shift from the U.S. and EU to Asia But, science itself is not zero-sum; a spirited competition helps all

Appendix Also see review draft of text paper at: Complete citations are there.

Detailed Regression Results: DV is papers unless stated

More Regression Findings: USG Allocations I can’t resist drilling down yet one more level, to the R&D funding by each U.S. agency, using AAAS data U.S. government investment has been up in recent years, but most of that is in defense. Even the non-defense budget has been up some, but almost all that increase is at National Institutes of Health. Except for NIH, non-defense government research investment has been flat in constant dollars since Since there has been very little increase in U.S. publication in healthcare fields during this interval, this resulted in a loss of publication share.

No Bang Per Buck: NIH Papers and Budgets (Papers in Psych., Clinical Meds, Pharma, Immune, Neuro.) Budgets are in constant $

Now Use Model with Constant k i to See If It Could Have Predicted Paper Share Decline NSI CD whole counts, actual GERD used each year.

Accuracy of Model Using 1995 Value of k i Fractional count basis, actual GERD shares used.