The global geography of scientific visibility: a deconcentration process (1999–2011) (original) (raw)

The Geographical Deconcentration of Scientific Activity (1987-2007)

Traditional research on "world cities" tends to develop the idea that large, inter-connected agglomerations can better take advantage of international competition. This suggests that we should observe an increasing concentration of activities in these cities at the expense of smaller ones. Among analyses using measures based on scientific publications, certain studies support this hypothesis. Others however, show that in certain countries such as China, an opposite trend is emerging; the largest cities are undergoing a relative decline in the country's scientific activities. To go beyond this seeming contradiction, this paper provides a global analysis of all countries having papers in Thomson Reuters' Web of Science over the period 1987-2007. The addresses present in all articles were geo-coded and then grouped into agglomerations. The result of our analysis is unambiguous: deconcentration is clearly the dominant trend both globally and within countries, despite s...

Putting Science in Its Place: Geographies of Scientific Knowledge

Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 2006

... At every scale from the international to the domestic, we inhabit locations that at once enable and constrain routine social relations. ... These spaces of discursive exchange are the consequences of social relations, and they are important because they are not simply about ...

Schuermans, Meeus & De Maesschalck, 2010: Is there a world beyond the Web of Science? Publication practices outside the heartland of academic geography

Because research on the publication practices of academic geographers has been limited to the quantification of journal articles cited in easily searchable databases such as Thomson Reuters' Web of Science or Elsevier's Scopus, the question remains whether journals that are not indexed by these databases flourish or perish under the increasing pressure to publish in outlets with the highest impact factors. To answer this question, we have compiled a database with the complete bibliographies of all Belgian professors that have been working in Belgium in the field of human geography over the last 40 years. Based on our quantitative analysis of 810 articles published in 304 different journals, we come to the conclusion that human geographers from the Dutch-speaking north of the country are currently publishing more in English-language journals and in journals indexed by the Web of Science than their colleagues in the seventies or the eighties, but less in the Dutch and the French languages and in Belgian geographical journals. In the French-speaking south of the country, this evolution is less pronounced, but still present. Even though we applaud the tendency to publish in English and in Web of Science journals because it increases the academic rigour of scholarly research, we are afraid that it hampers the role of academic geography in geography education and society as a whole.

Is there a world beyond the Web of Science? Publication practices outside the heartland of academic geography

Area, 2010

Because research on the publication practices of academic geographers has been limited to the quantification of journal articles cited in easily searchable databases such as Thomson Reuters' Web of Science or Elsevier's Scopus, the question remains whether journals that are not indexed by these databases flourish or perish under the increasing pressure to publish in outlets with the highest impact factors. To answer this question, we have compiled a database with the complete bibliographies of all Belgian professors that have been working in Belgium in the field of human geography over the last 40 years. Based on our quantitative analysis of 810 articles published in 304 different journals, we come to the conclusion that human geographers from the Dutchspeaking north of the country are currently publishing more in English-language journals and in journals indexed by the Web of Science than their colleagues in the seventies or the eighties, but less in the Dutch and the French languages and in Belgian geographical journals. In the French-speaking south of the country, this evolution is less pronounced, but still present. Even though we applaud the tendency to publish in English and in Web of Science journals because it increases the academic rigour of scholarly research, we are afraid that it hampers the role of academic geography in geography education and society as a whole.

WORLD-SYSTEM ANALYSIS 2.0 Globalized science in centers and peripheries

Science is being transformed by a series of technical and organizational changes that profoundly affect the terms of its production and use, thereby reconfiguring its role in contemporary societies. At the national level, these changes have particularly been analyzed in terms of ‘modes’ (Nowotny et al., 2001), of ‘regimes of knowledge production’ (Pestre, 2003; Van Oudheusden et al., 2015), of reconfiguration of the relationship between state, science and industry (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000; Joerges and Shinn, 2001), of shifting governance and research evaluation (Mustar and Laredo, 2002), or of a renewed relationship between science and society, due to the increase in public controversies involving scientific and technical issues (Latour, 1999). Furthermore, the nature of the production of scientific knowledge is also subject to greater openness, for example to indigenous knowledge, patient associations (Callon and Rabeharisoa, 2003) or other kind of actors (Jasanoff, 2004, Collins and Evans, 2008). At the international level, even if science always was an ‘international enterprise’ (Salomon, 2006) during recent decades it has become increasingly globalized and the reorganization of ‘international science’ presents a growing complex map. Indeed, some authors (Rosemann, 2014; Moya-Anegón et al., 2013; Grauwin et al., 2012; Veugelers, 2010) talk about a new multipolarity, particularly pointing at the decline of the formerly leading nations in the share of international scientific production (especially the US and Western Europe), and the emergence of new regions, like BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China). However, there exist until today very few studies focused on the consequences of these changes on less advanced (semi-peripheral) countries and on the relationships among knowledge production centers, with a critical perspective that takes into account the emerging complex dynamics. Therefore, our aim in this chapter is to suggest an analytical framework and to present empirical data on these dynamics, as well as on the consequences that ‘globalization’ has on the international organization of science, analyzing the complex relations between centers and peripheries (emphasizing the plural). We consider, in fact, that a critical ‘centers & peripheries’ approach—as it were a worldsystem analysis 2.0—is more adequate than the currently used concepts like ‘North and South’, or ‘developing countries’, because they are not able to show the profound heterogeneities within each geographical context.

Science on the periphery: a citation study of three less developed countries

Scientometrics

The scientific interactions of three peripheral nations in terms of citations and references to scientific literature is considered. The nations chosen are Argentina, Brazil and Norway, each with scientific establishments much smaller than those of central, or major, scientific nations. These three nations cite publications of the central nations strongly in comparison to those of theiI own country. Of the citations to the publications of these three countries, the bulk are generated from within the country involved. There is comparatively little interaction with neighbours. Further work is needed to determine if these patterns exist for most peripheral countries.

The Geography of Science

1986

Maps of research in the sciences and social sciences for the year 19S3 were generated from the Science Cita- tion Indexm /Social Sciences Citation Indexa database using a single-link clustering algorithm. The com- bined use of fractional citation counting and recitation frequency thresholds ensured a fair representation of smaller areas. The resulting clusters of co-cited publications were aggregated through iterative

International influence in science: Beyond center and periphery

Social Science Research, 1988

The global network of scientific influence has been described earlier as approximating a center and periphery constellation in which national scientific communities are stratified vertically by centrality, intluence upon others in general, and centrality of a community has been explained by its creativity. By controlling for centrality, this study goes beyond the center-periphery conception and describes a network of particular influence among communities, segmented horizontally in six geopolitical regions of structurally equivalent communities. Particular intluence by one community upon another is explained partly by intelligibility of the community's publications and collegial and educational ties between the communities; ties that are shaped by political-economic affinity, cultural cooperation, geographical propinquity, and language commonality between the countries. D 1988 Academic Press, Inc. Science is cultivated nearly worldwide and scientific ideas spread from their place of creation and affect research elsewhere. This diffusion and adoption of scientific information occurs across social boundaries such as national frontiers. There is a global network of scientific influence; science done by each national scientific community affects research in each other national scientific community. Influence, however, is not equally strong between all communities. Unequal influence entails stratification, communities occupy different positions. Two questions will be addressed here: What is the structure of international scientific influence, and what explains influence between national scientific communities? The prevailing sociological conception of the structure of international science is as a center with a periphery. First, the center-periphery model

Global shifts in world science base? A comparative analysis of Central and Eastern Europe with the world’s regions

This paper explores the changing role of world regions (CEE, EU15, South EU, Former USSR, North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific and the Middle East) in science base with special reference to EU15 (developed EU) and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in 1981-2011 period based on bibliometric data. The data are extracted from Thomson Reuter’s National Science Indicators (2011) for 21 broad disciplines in science and social sciences. We investigate over time changes in descriptive indicators such as publications, citations, impact as well as scientific specialization measured by revealed comparative advantage (RCA) applied to citations and papers, in three periods – i.e. 1981-1989, 1990-2000 and 2001-2011. Multidimensional scaling and hierarchical clustering are used to comment on divergence/convergence among world regions. In view of common historical legacy in science we are particularly interested in process of divergence within the post-socialist world as well as in the process ...