• 2008
• Domain
• Exhibit map

Traditional methods of comparing scientific strengths of nations are based on counting papers and citations within journal categories. However, journal category structures are too coarse to accurately show the strengths of smaller nations; the U.S. is #1 in most journal categories due to its size. Journal-based methods also fail to show the subdisciplinary or multidisciplinary nature of many countries’ strengths. This map introduces a method to identify and visualize research leadership using a reference paper-based classification system in which millions of papers are segmented into over 80,000 clusters. These 80,000 building blocks are individually re-assembled for each nation to reveal their areas of research leadership. Analysis of the top 13 publishing nations shows that our new method for measuring research leadership gives a much more accurate and detailed accounting of the actual scientific strengths of nations than does the journal-based method. Detailed comparisons are shown for three countries in the bottom panel. In particular, strengths of small nations, along with subdisciplinary and multidisciplinary strength, are more accurately identified using the new method. Overlaying U.S. strengths with those from the top 12 competitive nations shows the areas in which those nations have a leadership role that is not matched by the U.S.