China

The geography of Scientific Authorship

The impact of Asian Science

Main areas

Publishers previously accustomed to limited subscription revenue from China are approaching the market with renewed vigour as a result of the normalisation of the Chinese market in terms of copyright observance, and also by the increasing levels of government funding being channelled into China’s higher education establishments. In 2003 Key Perspectives did a study of the Chinese market for the Publishers Association. In 2005 we published a survey of 500 Chinese academics highlighting their attitudes towards scholarly publishing. The survey was coordinated by the Publishers Association and supported by a syndicate of 7 leading scholarly publishers. Both reports can be obtained from the Publishers Association.

Key Perspectives has also been researching the structure of the Chinese higher education sector, creating a database of the universities, the subjects they teach and their relative quality.

In June this year Key Perspectives was invited to present a paper at the International Conference on Policies and Strategies for Open Access to Scientific Information. The presentation slides can be seen in our Open Access Archive and the conference website can be found here or at the UK mirror site at the University of Southampton.

Key Perspectives recently conducted research into the geography of scientific authorship for a presentation at a symposium organised by the International Network for Access to Scientific Publications (INASP). The research showed clearly that research output in the developing world has increased markedly in recent years, and identified countries where output in particular subject areas is growing especially quickly. Vietnam’s publication rate in condensed matter physics, for instance, is increasing disproportionately quickly. The presentation is available in our Open Access Archive.

The results of our research into the impact of Asian science were presented at Fiesole 2005 held in Melbourne this April. The study looked at scientific output, productivity, growth and geography, identifying Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand as up-and-coming producers of science. This presentation is also available in our Open Access Archive.