Technological research in the EU is less efficient than the world average. EU research policy risks Europeans' future

We have studied the efficiency of research in the EU by a percentile-based citation approach that analyzes the distribution of country papers among the world papers. Going up in the citation scale, the frequency of papers from efficient countries increases while the frequency from inefficient countr...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Rodríguez Navarro, Alonso, Brito López, Ricardo
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2018
País:España
Institución:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/13125
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/13125
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:536
Size-independent indicators
Percentile rank classes
Scientific excellence
Triple-helix
Cited papers
Industrial-innovation
Academic research
United-states
Productivity
Science
Termodinámica
2213 Termodinámica
Descripción
Sumario:We have studied the efficiency of research in the EU by a percentile-based citation approach that analyzes the distribution of country papers among the world papers. Going up in the citation scale, the frequency of papers from efficient countries increases while the frequency from inefficient countries decreases. In the percentile-based approach, this trend, which is uniform at any citation level, is measured by the e(p) index that equals the P-top 1%/P-top 10% ratio. By using the ep index we demonstrate that EU research on fast-evolving technological topics is less efficient than the world average and that the EU is far from being able to compete with the most advanced countries. The ep index also shows that the USA is well ahead of the EU in both fast- and slow-evolving technologies, which suggests that the advantage of the USA over the EU in innovation is due to low research efficiency in the EU. In accord with some previous studies, our results show that the European Commission's ongoing claims about the excellence of EU research are based on a wrong diagnosis. The EU must focus its research policy on the improvement of its inefficient research. Otherwise, the future of Europeans is at risk. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.