(3 December 2015, London) The Nature Index analytics report Indian Science Ascending is the first of a new style of reports that further probe data from the Nature Index http://www.natureindex.com/) to answer questions about India’s place in global science, especially when compared with countries that have similar volumes of index output in 2014 and with broadly similar economic conditions (including Australia, Brazil, Italy, Russia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan).
The Nature Index database tracks the author affiliations of nearly 60,000 scientific articles published in an independently selected group of 68 high-quality science journals, and charts publication productivity for institutions and countries. The Nature Index report Indian Science Ascending shows a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8% between 2012 and 2014 in the output of top-quality science in the country.
The report also chronicles India’s particular strength in the broad discipline of Chemistry, which shows the largest increase in CAGR of 8.6% among the comparator countries. The collaboration analysis reports that India’s international collaboration far outweighs domestic collaboration, and zooming into links between industry and academia reveals that Indian academic institutions collaborate mainly with international corporations through their international branches.
President Designate, CII, Naushad Forbes said: “There’s a common perception that India fails to produce anything of significant scientific value, but this report presents a refreshingly different picture of Indian science, supported by evidence – a fact reflected in its title: India’s Ascent Towards World Class Science. Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently launched a single-window mechanism called “Imprint” for release of R&D funds to academic institutions along with other policy measures. Hopefully soon then, our “historic love affair with chemistry”, aptly highlighted in this report, will be replicated in other areas of science too.”
Antoine Bocquet, Vice President Sales Japan, India, Southeast Asia and Oceania said: “Since its launch in 2014, the Nature Index has provided a new way to look at the scientific literature and the research organizations that contribute to it. India’s investment into R&D has stayed less than 1 per cent of its GDP for the past 2 decades, although the growth in Indian output in the index shows a steady increase. With other new initiatives by the Indian government such as tax incentives for R&D, we are excited to see the outcome in future years and continue working with CII to track the country’s growth both in the quantity of high-quality research and diversity in collaboration patterns. India will continue to be a driver of growth in both the quantity and quality of global research and a country to watch closely.”
Highlights from the Nature Index report Indian Science Ascending:
• At number 13, India is among the top 15 countries globally in the Nature Index 2014.
• India’s research output has grown steadily since 2012, showing stronger CAGR of 8% than other countries with comparable output and economic conditions.
• Chemistry continues to be India’s strongest research area with 50 per cent of India’s overall Nature Index output coming from Chemistry alone.
• The US is India’s top collaborator followed by Germany. India collaborates with 85 countries, mostly in Europe. Other strong collaborative ties include East Asia and Australia.
• Institutions in India collaborate mostly with inter¬national counterparts, but their largest collaborations tend to be with other domestic institutions.
• Industry–academia collaboration is yet to take off in India, but Indian academic institutions have good collaborative ties with international cor¬porations.
The Nature Index White analysis on Indian Science is available here: http://www.natureindex.com/news/indian-science-ascending/
More information about the Nature Index is available at: www.natureindex.com
The announcement in full is here.
