UK Continues to Punch Above its Weight in the Research Arena

UK Continues to Punch Above its WeightUK Continues to Punch Above its Weight in the Research Arena PR Newswire LONDON, December 6, 2013 Most productive relative to R&D spend compared to the world's major research nations The UK remains a global research heavyweight according to a new report launched today by the UK's Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). The 'International Comparative Performance of the UK Research Base 2013' report has been produced by Elsevier's SciVal Analytics team and is based on Scopus data and numerous other sources. The report shows that while the UK represents just 0.9% of the global population, it accounts for 3.2% of R&D expenditure, 4.1% of researchers, 6.4% of research articles, 9.5% of research article downloads and 15.9% of the world's most highly-cited articles. In terms of research quality, as measured by field-weighted citation impact, the UK has overtaken the US and now ranks first amongst the comparator countries used in the report. These include the world's most research-intensive nations - the US, China, Japan, Germany, Italy, Canada and France. UK research also clearly drives global innovation: its research is the second most frequently cited in global patents after Germany. The UK is the most productive research nation in terms of articles and citations per unit R&D expenditure ranking first amongst comparator countries on these two indicators.