Ranking Analytical Chemistry by Country A look at the research output by country finds some major surprises. Maria Burke
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pain is racing ahead, the United Kingdom is lagging behind, but the “big three” in analytical chemical research publishing remain the United States, Japan, and Germany, according to the first survey of innovation in the analytical science world. However, when the figures are adjusted to account for each nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), Spain and Sweden surprisingly come out on top with the United States and Japan bringing up the rear. The survey took 18 months to complete and was conducted by the United Kingdom Analytical Partnership (UKAP), an informal collection of analytical scientists and organizations from academia, industry, and government, which aims to improve the United Kingdom’s technical competitiveness in analytical chemistry (Anal. Chem. 2001, 73, 477 A–478 A). The UKAP team studied data from 16 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, looking at 3 criteria of innovation: quantity of published research, “exploitability” measured by a patent-to-publication ratio, and growth in ana-
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who helped compile the survey, says, “We were slightly surprised that Japan and Germany were so close together in terms of output. We would have 20.00 expected Japan to be further ahead. And that the gap between the U.K. and Japan and Germany is so large.” 15.00 Spain was another surprise story (Figure 1b). According to Ferguson, “We all knew that Spain has 10.00 dramatically strengthened its position, but we were quite amazed at how much improvement there had been in volume terms.” Brian Harrison, technolo5.00 gy director of Johnson Matthey and leader of the UKAP Steering Group, adds, “We don’t know why 0.00 the Spanish are channelling so much money into 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 analytical science, but we intend to find out why.” Year Ferguson was also surprised how well France fared. “We had expected dire news after listening to (b) 10.00 grumblings from French colleagues about the lack of funds and how analytical science is going down8.00 hill. But, in fact, France’s position has been gradually improving over the past two decades.” The audit confirms British analytical chemists’ 6.00 worst fears about their country’s competitive position. “[The study] has fleshed out where we are weak 4.00 and indicated some areas where there are inklings of activity,” says Harrison. “Now we need to work with funding agencies to see money is channelled into the 2.00 right areas.” “Before 1995, the U.K., Japan, and Germany were more or less constant, or growing slightly in 0.00 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 output, but after 1995, a significant gap started to Year open up between Germany and Japan and the U.K.,” FIGURE 1. Share of analytical publications by country. says Ferguson. This may be due to a flurry of British publications around 1995 when academics were en(a) Data for top four countries. (b) Selected countries with 30% reflects an enormousThe results are a mix of good and bad news for British scienly strong and successful industry,” says Ferguson. “Sweden’s tists who have a reasonably good position in some cutting-edge position at number two is slightly surprising but is probably the areas, such as nanospray, transcription, proteomics, and highresult of a small sample size. But it does have a strong reputation throughput screening. However, Ferguson warns that it usualin a few niche areas and a very good quality scientific instru- ly only takes one to three years for Japan or the United States mentation industry.” to leapfrog ahead of the United Kingdom in a new technology. Spain’s low ranking in the patent-to-publication ratio list fits “If we don’t work damned hard, in two or three years someone will blow us out of the water, so complacency is our worst enemy.” 35 According to the Ferguson, the United Kingdom 30 needs to strengthen its expertise in areas such as miniaturization and time-of-flight MS, which are critical for 25 postgenomics science. “We should be content with a 20 moderate position in technologies that are mature and not growing rapidly, such as thin-layer chromatography 15 and high-performance liquid chromatography. Capil10 lary electrophoresis is an exception. It has a great potential when coupled with miniaturization techniques. 5 We are not strong in this, but we should be,” he adds. 0 UKAP plans to repeat the survey in three to five years. More details of the survey are available at http://www. chemsoc.org/networks/ukap/innovation.htm#2.
Maria Burke is a freelance writer based in St Albans, United Kingdom. N O V E M B E R 1 , 2 0 0 1 / A N A LY T I C A L C H E M I S T R Y
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