Capturing ‘R&D excellence’: Indicators, international statistics, and innovative universities

Tijssen, R.J.W.; Winnink, J.J. (2018)

Article / Letter to editor

Excellent research may contributeto successful science-based technological innovation. We define ‘R&D excellence’in terms of scientific research that has contributed to the development ofinfluential technologies, where ‘excellence’ refers to the top segment of astatistical distribution based  oninternationally comparative performance scores. Our measurements are derivedfrom frequency counts of literature references (‘citations’) from patents toresearch publications during the last 15 years. The ‘D’ part in R&D isrepresented by the top10% most highly cited ‘excellent’ patents worldwide. The ‘R’part is captured by research articles in international scholarly journals thatare cited by these patented technologies.

After analyzing millions of citingpatents and cited research publications, we find very large differences betweencountries worldwide in terms of the volume of domestic science contributing to thosepatented technologies. Where the USA produces the largest numbers of cited researchpublications (partly because of database biases), Switzerland and Israel outperformthe US after correcting for the size of their national science systems.

To tease out possible explanatoryfactors, which may significantly affect or determine these performancedifferentials, we first studied high-income nations and advanced economies. Herewe find that the size of R&D expenditure correlates with the sheer size ofcited publications, as does the degree of university research cooperation withdomestic firms. When broadening our comparative framework to 70 countries(including many medium-income nations) while correcting for size of national sciencesystems, the important explanatory factors become the availability of humanresources and quality of science systems. Focusing on the latter factor, ourin-depth analysis of 716 research-intensive universities worldwide reveals severaluniversities with very high scores on our two R&D excellence indicators.Confirming the above macro-level findings, an in-depth study of 27 leading USuniversities identifies research expenditure size as a prime determinant.

Our analytical model andquantitative indicators provides a supplementary perspective to input-oriented statisticsbased on R&D expenditures. The country-level findings are indicative of significantdisparities between national R&D systems. Comparing the performance ofindividual universities, we observe large differences within national sciencesystems. The top ranking ‘innovative’ research universities contribute significantlyto the development of advanced science-based technologies. 

• All authors: Tijssen, R.J.W.; Winnink, J.J.
• Editor(s): Winnink; J.J..
• Date: 2018
• Journal: Scientometrics
• Volume: 114
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 687 - 699
• DOI: doi:10.1007/s11192-017-2602-9