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The cumulative number of physics, chemistry and medicine Nobel prizes per country. Prizes are attributed to the respective country according to the nationality of the recipients at the time of the announcement, with prizes obtained by more than one recipient accordingly divided. Note that the US population increased from 76 to 327 million during 1901–2017.
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We point out that the Nobel prize production of the USA, the UK, Germany and France has been in numbers that are large enough to allow for a reliable analysis or the long-term historical developments. Nobel prizes are often split, such that up to three awardees receive a corresponding fractional prize. The historical trends for the fractional numbe...
Citations
... A recent study 17 demonstrates that disparities in regional scientific competitiveness are being reduced through the analysis of the concentration of research fields. Conversely, the winners of major scientific awards 18 , top-performing research universities 14 , and high-impact publications 19 remain confined to certain nations, such as the US and the UK. Several domainspecific studies [20][21][22] have provided insight into the significant role played by certain nations in the development of domains. ...
A scientist’s choice of research topic affects the impact of their work and future career. While the disparity between nations in scientific information, funding, and facilities has decreased, scientists on the cutting edge of their fields are not evenly distributed across nations. Here, we quantify relative progress in research topics of a nation from the time-series comparison of reference lists from papers, using 71 million published papers from Scopus. We discover a steady leading-following relationship in research topics between Western nations or Asian city-states and others. Furthermore, we find that a nation’s share of information-rich scientists in co-authorship networks correlates highly with that nation’s progress in research topics. These results indicate that scientists’ relationships continue to dominate scientific evolution in the age of open access to information and explain the failure or success of nations’ investments in science.
... In all these areas the research level and competition were much more intense in Europe than in America at that time ( Figure 1). 12 Here is a partial list of some early German Nobel What is the origin of these differences? In the UK, Government funding of science started in 1675 when the Royal Observatory was established in Greenwich. ...
... Prizes are attributed to the respective country according to the nationality of the recipients at the time of the announcement, with prizes obtained by more than one recipient accordingly divided. Note that the US population increased from 76 to 327 million during 1901-2017.12 ...
The US lagged behind the European powers, Germany, Britain and France, in scientific research and development at the beginning of the 20th century. Why this occurred and how Germany and Britain supported their flourishing scientific research cultures are discussed. The first serious expansion in basic scientific research in the US occurred with the influx of European Jewish scientists fleeing Nazism in the 1930’s. They specifically brought with them knowledge of atomic physics. The influence of Vannevar Bush, who was Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War Two proved crucial for the expansion of civilian research and development after the War, supported by the Federal Government. Also after the War, Operation Paperclip brought German scientists to the US and they had significant influence on developments in aeronautics, rocketry and space exploration.
... Other studies investigated the correlation between acoustic features [15] and repetitive lyrics [28] to market success, the interplay between popularity and significance in popular music [23], and whether there is a trend towards a global musical culture [1]. An alternative venue for the study of long-term societal developments are recognized scientific and cultural awards, like the Nobel Prize [10]. On an extended level, Schneider and Gros [34] suggested that music charts are suitable proxies for testing quantitatively the concept of social acceleration [33], viz. the notion that both personal and societal processes proceed nowadays faster than they used to [38,39]. ...
Charts are used to measure relative success for a large variety of cultural items. Traditional music charts have been shown to follow self-organizing principles with regard to the distribution of item lifetimes, the on-chart residence times. Here we examine if this observation holds also for (a) music streaming charts (b) book best-seller lists and (c) for social network activity charts, such as Twitter hashtags and the number of comments Reddit postings receive. We find that charts based on the active production of items, like commenting, are more likely to be influenced by external factors, in particular by the 24 h day–night cycle. External factors are less important for consumption-based charts (sales, downloads), which can be explained by a generic theory of decision-making. In this view, humans aim to optimize the information content of the internal representation of the outside world, which is logarithmically compressed. Further support for information maximization is argued to arise from the comparison of hourly, daily and weekly charts, which allow to gauge the importance of decision times with respect to the chart compilation period.
... At this point, it is important to outline how the image of the United States as a moral, democratic, and scientific power was created based on the contributions of certain elite diasporas. Recent literature that was published during the years of Donald Trump's administration, such as Burke (2017), Kando (2018), Gros (2018) and Van der Linden et al., (2020) has pointed to the role of skilled immigrants for U.S. scientific culture and its exceptional economic outcome. In his book Exiles and Expatriates in the History of Knowledge, 1500-2000, Burke (2017 describes how knowledge immigrants have helped to deprovincialize and introduce other cultures to the United States, particularly since the great exodus from Hitler's Reich in the twentieth century. ...
... In the same vein, Gros (2018) carries an empirical study of the per capita yield of science Nobel prizes and sees a decline in some Nobel prizes such as the ones awarded to natural scientists in the United States. Gros concludes with a question on whether the U.S. era is coming to an end. ...
This book analyzes President Joe Biden´s first actions on immigration, in a double exercise of comparison with his predecessor, Donald Trump, and a prospective analysis of what his chances are to improve current migration and refugee laws to further reinstate the US as a moral power. This is also a book about a possible change in US migration policy, following the Trump trauma as regards his discursive aggressivity and legislative damage towards migrants. In fact, discourse analysis, labelling and legal framings are important in the text, as a common methodological background for scholars from Mexico and the US. Our main objective is to culturally translate the US tradition of analysis the President´s first 100 days in power into a more regional reading of what Biden has achieved for migrants in general, Latin Americans in particular. The book is divided in two main parts, with three chapters each: a) general implications of migration policy changes and ideological perspectives in the US; and b) specific anti-immigrant policies in the following areas: DACA, asylum policies, public services, and imaginaries.
... In the years after 1971, awarded research deals with programmed death and immune reactions, immunity, monoclonal antibodies and stem cell properties. [1][2][3][4] Similarly, although the first award in this field was given in 1901, the researches related to cancer and carcinogenesis were more limited. In 1957, it was determined that cell genetic material and related protein systems (especially ubiquitin) also came into prominence in the years following the award, which explored nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes. ...
... In 1957, it was determined that cell genetic material and related protein systems (especially ubiquitin) also came into prominence in the years following the award, which explored nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes. [4] In 2015, Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich, and Aziz Sancar received the Chemistry Award with studies on nucleotide excision repair. [1][2][3] In 2018, James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo were given the Nobel Prize for their work based on immunotherapy [ Table 1]. ...
The Nobel Prize, which is awarded annually, is open to everyone, regardless of nationality, race, belief or ideology, and winners are announced in October. We evaluated the history of the Nobel prizes for awards that have been awarded in fields related to cancer. The contents of the research and their contribution to oncology were determined and reviewed. There were nine awards directly related to cancer. Only studies thought to be groundbreaking in carcinogenesis and molecular treatment of cancer are included in this review.
... The EU's problem with research is probably thus a problem of research policy. The lower success of Germany or France versus UK in Nobel prize awards (Gros, 2018) or number of highly cited researchers (Bauwens et al., 2011) does not have any other explanation. If GFIS were to copy UKNCH research policies then they should achieve a similar success in research. ...
Numerous EU documents praise the excellence of EU research without empirical evidence and against academic studies. We investigated research performance in two fields of high socioeconomic importance, advanced technology and basic medical research, in two sets of European countries, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain (GFIS), and the UK, the Netherlands, and Switzerland (UKNCH). Despite historical and geographical proximity, research performance in GFIS is much lower than in UKNCH, and well below the world average. Funding from the European Research Council (ERC) greatly improves performance both in GFIS and UKNCH, but ERC-GFIS publications are less cited than ERC-UKNCH publications. We conclude that research performance in GFIS and in other EU countries is intrinsically low even in highly selected and generously funded projects. The technological and economic future of the EU depends on improving research, which requires structural changes in research policy within the EU, and in most EU countries.
... Comparable figures over a recent 14-year period (2001-2014) are more difficult to tally because of the large number of shared prizes, but it is remarkable that there was not a single year without awards to USA researchers, which was not the case for Europe. This decline mainly affected Germany and France, however, less so the UK (Gros 2018); see also Bauwens et al. 2011). Thus, the most important cause of the decline in European research has been the decline of German and French research, while some northern EU countries have not been affected-or to a lesser extent-by the decline. ...
... The EU's problem with research is thus a problem of research policy. The lower success of Germany or France versus UK in Nobel prizes awards (Gros 2018) or number of highly cited researchers (Bauwens et al. 2011) does not have any other explanation. Should GFIS copy UKNCH research policies then they should achieve a similar success in research. ...
Numerous EU documents praise the excellence of EU research without empirical evidence and against academic studies. We investigated research performance in two fields of high socioeconomic importance, advanced technology and basic medical research, in two sets of European countries, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain (GFIS), and the UK, the Netherlands, and Switzerland (UKNCH). Despite historical and geographical proximity, research performance in GFIS is much lower than in UKNCH, and well below the world average. Funding from the European Research Council (ERC) greatly improves performance both in GFIS and UKNCH, but ERC-GFIS publications are less cited than ERC-UKNCH publications. We conclude that research performance in GFIS and in other EU countries is intrinsically low even when it is generously funded. The technological and economic future of the EU depends on improving research, which requires structural changes in research policy within the EU, and in most EU countries.
... Итак, рассмотрение проблемы ab ovo начинается. Но действительно ли можно из близости результатов оценки «воздействия» (с помощью данных о цитируемости) и оценки «зна чимости» (с помощью экспертной оценки) сделать вывод о возмож 6 Обилие соответствующих работ Ю.Гарфилда (мы процитировали н все!) и реакция на многие из них научной общественности свидетельству ет о жгучем интересе к вопросам «предсказания» или «предвидения» данных о будущих нобелевских лауреатах -интересу, который отнюдь не угас в наши дни, о чём, в частности, свидетельствует новейшая работа С.Gross [72]. -Прим. ...
The claim that the citedness magnitudes show the «Nobel class» of the
scientist seems to be self-evident. However, to accept it as an absolute truth, a correspondence must be found between the characteristic (property) adequately reflected by citedness and the characteristic that determines the award of the Nobel Prizes in science. The characteristic that is directly reflected by the citedness is the use of scientific documents by scientists; the use, in its turn, reflects the value of scientific documents for scientists. At the same time, the characteristic that determines the award of Nobel Prizes is the benefit brought
to the mankind. These are fundamentally different properties related to fundamentally different mega-objects. (Moreover, some discoveries valuable in the scientific sense might be harmful for the mankind.)
This discrepancy is consciously or intuitively overcome by arbitrary substitution of the concept of the notion of «value» (of cited scientific documents) with the notions of «impact», «quality», «usefulness» (of cited scientific documents) etc. It is shown that the concept of the «quality» of cited scientific documents is the best to correspond with the notion of «benefit to the mankind». However, the quality of scientific documents, contrary to popular belief, is not reflected by citedness.
But the statistics of coincidence of the results of expert evaluation of the quality of scientific documents and their citedness (evaluation of their value on the basis of citedness) demonstrates that the level of citedness can be taken as a proxy indicator of their quality. (The use of the proxy indicator is based not on causal relations, but on probabilistic ones.) In rare cases of the so-called «negative citedness» the value of the cited document is reflected, while its quality is being assesses as low. Taking into account the understanding that there are no causal relations between citation and quality, citedness can still be accepted as a probabilistic (proxy) indicator of quality; and, being such an indicator, it may be accepted for studying «Nobel class» of the scientists by their citedness level. Discussed in detail is the concept of «impact» of scientific papers, considered are such properties of scientific papers as «significance», «importance», «pertinence», «usefulness», as well as the ability of their evaluation on the basis of the citedness. The correspondence of these characteristics to the
notion of «benefit brought to the mankind» is under critical analysis. /
Утверждение, что в показателях цитируемости отображается «нобе-левский класс» учёного, представляется само собой разумеющимся. Однако для принятия его за безусловную истину должно быть найдено соответствие между характеристикой (свойством), адекватно отображаемой(-ом) цитируемостью, и характеристикой, обуславливающей присуждение Нобелевских премий по науке. Непосредственно отображаемой цитируемостью характеристикой является использование научных документов учёными, а отображаемым этой характеристикой свойством является ценность научных документов для учёных. В то же время характеристикой, обусловливающей присуждение Нобелевских премий, является польза («benefit»), принесённая человечеству. Это принципиально разные свойства, относящиеся к принципиально разным мегаобъектам. (Более того, ценные в научном отношении открытия могут быть вредными для человечества).
Это несоответствие сознательно или интуитивно преодолевают неправомочной подменой понятия «ценность» (цитируемых научных документов) понятиями «воздействие» («impact», на русский язык часто пере-водится как «вклад»), «качество», «польза» (цитируемых научных доку-ментов) и т.д. Показано, что понятие качества цитируемых научных документов наилучшим образом соотносится с понятием пользы, принесённой человечеству. Однако качество научных документов, вопреки
распространённейшему мнению, не отображается в цитируемости. Зато статистика совпадений экспертной оценки качества научных документов и их цитируемости (оценки их ценности на основании цитируемости) убеждает, что уровень цитируемости может быть при необходимости принят за такой показатель (proxy) их качества, использование которого основано не на причинно-следственных связях, а на вероятностных. (При этом в редких случаях т.н. «отрицательного цитирования» отражается ценность цитируемого документа при низкой оценке его качества). С учётом понимания того, что причинно-следственных связей между цитируемостью и качеством нет, но цитируемость все-таки может быть использована как вероятностный показатель качества, следует признать обоснованность исследований «нобелевского класса» с помощью показателей цитируемости.
Подробно рассмотрено понятие «воздействие» (“impact”) научных документов, рассмотрены такие свойства научных документов как «значимость» (“significance”), «важность» (“importance”), «пертинентность», «полезность» (“usefulness”), возможности их оценивания на основании данных о цитируемости, оотнесённость их с понятием «польза (“benefit”), принесённая человечеству».
... Germany and the Soviet Union could have beaten the U.S. in the space race had America not benefitted from the brain transfer. This enabled America to be the first to develop nuclear technology, to win World War II, and to win the space race", says Kando (2018, p.76). 2 2 There is literature on the possible decline of US leadership in science and technology research (Gros, 2018), based on data showing that the US's per capita science productivity, in terms of Nobel prizes in the natural sciences, has been declining since the restrictive take on immigration, but this ...
This paper deals with two dimensions of brain drain studies: a classical one, that analyzes recent figures and debates, and an empirical one based on the life histories of five outstanding Latin American scientists. We refer to the testimonies of three Latin American scientists who won Nobel Prizes and of two Latin American mathematicians. Only two out of these five pursued their scientific careers in their native countries. The end result is a reflection on the endogenous and cultural causes of brain drain such as corruption and an insufficient commitment to hard sciences in Latin America. Other factors such as the lack of adequate resources, local political upheaval and the region's economic dependency are also considered.
Charts are used to measure relative success for a large variety of cultural items. Traditional music charts have been shown to follow self-organizing principles with regard to the distribution of item lifetimes, the on-chart residence times. Here we examine if this observation holds also for (a) music streaming charts (b) book best-seller lists and (c) for social network activity charts, such as Twitter hashtags and the number of comments Reddit postings receive. We find that charts based on the active production of items, like commenting, are more likely to be influenced by external factors, in particular by the 24 hour day-night cycle. External factors are less important for consumption-based charts (sales, downloads), which can be explained by a generic theory of decision-making. In this view, humans aim to optimize the information content of the internal representation of the outside world, which is logarithmically compressed. Further support for information maximization is argued to arise from the comparison of hourly, daily and weekly charts, which allow to gauge the importance of decision times with respect to the chart compilation period.
