Elsevier Releases Latest Industry Study Revealing Surprising Growth Trends from the Global South Among G20 Nations
The report also focuses on emerging scientific research collaborations and topics
LONDON, United Kingdom – (Newsfile Corp. – July 12, 2023) – Elsevier, a leading global provider of evidence-based clinical practice content, research publications and information analysis, has just released its latest report, which analyzes global research trends with a focus on collaborations between the world’s largest economies. Promoting collaboration: a study of scholarly publications with authors in G20 countriesexamined data from Elsevier’s industry-leading SCOPUS database and found that researchers in G20 countries co-authored 75% of all scientific publications worldwide from 2012 to 2021.
The report, presented at a seminar jointly organized by India’s Ministry of Education in partnership with Elsevier, analyzes the scientific performance of the 19 G20 members, all of which have rigorous research and development programmes. Elsevier examined 24,746,950 scientific publications by researchers from nearly 20,000 institutions. The data led to some notable trends in global research.
Global Research Growth in the South
Most notably, India has surpassed the UK as the world’s third-largest research producer for the first time, after China and the US. In fact, the report shows that all G20 countries have seen tremendous growth in their scientific capacity over the past 30 years. In recent years, those belonging to the Global South have shown the greatest growth. From 1999 to 2022, the number of scientific publications with authors in India grew by 11.2% per year. For China the rate was 14.7%, for Saudi Arabia 16% and for Indonesia 20.1% per year. Looking at the last decade, Indonesia’s research output grew by 26% per year, Saudi Arabia by 17% and South Africa by 7.8% per year compared to the world average growth rate of 3.6%. The data also shows that China and India had growth rates of 9.3% and 9.7%, respectively, significantly higher than the US’s 0.5%.
The author of the report, Dr. Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, senior vice president at Elsevier and professor emeritus at the State University of Campinas, said: “The research landscape in the world is changing. Thirty years ago, it was the rich countries of the Global North that did research. Now there is a change and countries from the Global South are becoming more and more relevant in research and science.” . India has spawned so many collaborations, especially in the implementation of the SDG goal of reducing world hunger. Scientific production in India is growing at 25% annually. Soon India will have a body of knowledge that will become the reference for every other country in the world.”
Research collaboration trends
Meanwhile, international co-authorship ranged from 18% to 73% over the 2017-2021 period, with Saudi Arabia, Australia, France and the UK reporting the highest proportions of international collaboration globally. Cooperation strategies among the G20 countries varied. India’s most important cooperation partners are, for example, the USA, Great Britain and China. China prefers cooperation with the US, UK and Australia. Argentina, on the other hand, works more closely with the USA, Brazil and Germany. The most important cooperation partner of all G20 members is the USA, with the exception of Indonesia, which mainly cooperates with Japan.
AI research trends
In research in the growing artificial intelligence (AI) field, SCOPUS data shows that the growth rate for AI-related publications is greater in China and India than in the US, UK and Germany. Notably, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of AI-related publications from Saudi Arabia lately. Looking at the overall AI research programs of the Global South, only four countries were considered as major contributors to global AI research in 2013: China, India, Brazil and Iran. After being trimmed to 2022 data, Brazil has fallen behind and the list has now been joined by Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh and Russia. However, there has been a recent decline in Russia.
The report, Promoting collaboration: a study of scholarly publications with authors in G20 countries, is available online.
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Notes for editors
The Group of 20 includes 19 countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States ) and European Union. The report analyzes the scientific production of the 19 national units.
According to the bibliometric database SCOPUS, in 2021 researchers in G20 countries were co-authors of 75% of all scientific publications worldwide. The data includes 24,746,950 scientific publications with authors from 2012 to 2021, spread across 19,743 research institutions in the 19 countries covered.
About Elsevier
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