European Commission

Environment (FP7/JST Funded): Project Duration: 36 months; Budget: 22.5m Yen.             Applications in Japanese/English to JST. Two deadlines: 19 November 2010 and 2          February 2011. Further Information: JST

Biotechnology (FP7/JST Funded): Call identifiers: KBBE.2011.1.1-01, KBBE.2011.1.1-02,       KBBE.2011.1.2-05, KBBE.2011.3.1-01, KBBE.2011.3.4-01; Budget: most up to €3m per project. Deadline: 2 February 2011. Further Information: JST; Cordis FP7

Photovoltaics (FP7/NEDO Funded), Topic: “Ultra-high efficiency concentration photovoltaics (CPV) cells, modules and systems”, Call identifier: NMP.2011.2.2-6; Deadline: 25 November, Further Information: Cordis - FP7; NEDO (in Japanese)

Superconductivity (FP7/JST Funded), Topic:  “Fundamental properties of novel superconducting materials”. Budget requests should not exceed EUR 1.8m. Eligibility is the usual criteria: Additionally, a proposal will only be eligible if co-ordinated with a Japanese proposal submitted to the JST. Call Website: Cordis - FP7; JST (English from 2nd page); JST (general information - Japanese), Call Identifier: FP7-NMP-2011-EU-Japan Deadline: 17 November 2010

Industrial Technologies (FP7/JST Funded). Two topics: “Active nanomembranes/-filters/-adsorbents for efficient water treatment with stable or regenerable low-fouling surfaces” (NMP.2011.1.2-3), “Intelligent testing strategies for nanomaterials impact and exposure – towards regulation and clustering of materials” (NMP.2011.1.3-3). Deadlines: NMP.2011.1.2-3: 19 November 2010; NMP.2011.1.3-3: 2 February 2010, Further Information: Cordis FP7; Cordis FP7

Aeronautics (FP7 Funded). This is funded directly via FP7. Japanese research organisations that join research consortia in this field can be funded through FP7. Further Information: Cordis FP7

Space (FP7 Funded) T This is funded directly via FP7. Japanese research organisations that join research consortia in this field can be funded through FP7. The full list of calls in this field are available here: Cordis FP7; Deadline: 25 November 2010

Further Support

The EU have set up a support project in Japan called ‘J-BILAT’. This is based at the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation and is to support Japanese participation in FP7. Dr. Toshiyasu Ichioka is the manager of the J-Bilat project and will be very happy to help if you have any queries or questions regarding participation in FP7 projects.

At the Delegation, Mr Akira Kimura and Dr Barbara Rhode, members of the S&T section, are also pleased to answer your questions.

Contact Information:
Dr Toshiyasu Ichioka (J-Bilat Project) EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation.
FP7 Enquiry Service

call for applications to the Starting Grant scheme in the social sciences & humanities is still open. 

Deadline: 24 November 2010
Further Information: ERC

These are to encourage & support excellent, innovative investigator-initiated research projects. Applicants are expected to be active researchers who have a track-record of significant research achievements in the last 10 years.

Although there are no restrictions regarding age, nationality, or current place of residence, the Principal Investigators should be exceptional leaders in terms of originality and significance of their research contributions.

Applications are welcome in any discipline with the following deadlines:

1. Physical Sciences and Engineering (9 February)
2. Life Sciences (10 March)
3. Social Sciences & Humanities (6 April)

Funding is provided up to €3.5m for a period up to 5 years.

Further information:
ERC   Cordis

This allows European research organisations and other research organisations to establish or reinforce long-term research cooperation through the exchange of researchers for short periods. Japan is eligible to participate as it has a Science and Technology Agreement with the European Union.

Support will be provided for a period of 24-48 months. The maximum duration of the individual staff exchanges is 12 months, which can be split into several exchange periods within the total duration of the programme. During this period, joint research, joint training, joint workshops, seminars or other networking activities could be performed.

A minimum of three partners are required (two from EU Member States or Associated Countries + one other country). To provide one example: an Austrian and a Hungarian university could develop an exchange programme with a research institute in Japan.

All fields of research are relevant and are to be chosen by the researchers.
In 2008, 2 project submissions were received from Japan (1 was funded). In 2009, 14 project submissions were received (11 were funded).

Deadline for applications is 17 March 2011.

Further information is available from Cordis – click the Guide for Applicants page.

Also contact the Delegation/J-Bilat/or me for further support or information.

to apply to the Academy in conjunction with a UK host, for research visits to the UK for two to six months.

Visits to commence between 1 May 2011 to 31 March 2012.

Deadline: 8 December
Further Information: British Academy

Forthcoming deadlines for the following schemes are as follows:

1. Summer Student Programme: 26 Jan.
2. CERN-Japan Fellowship Programme: 1 Dec. (for young researchers with Japanese nationality or permanent residency status in Japan)
3. Non-Member State Theoretical Physicists: 6 Dec.

Further information: CERN

allowing international researchers and scientists (all fields) to be hosted in France for 12 months, possibly spread over 2 years.

Applications from female candidates are particularly encouraged.

Four candidates will be selected.
Deadline: 10 January
Location: Il de France

Further Information: Chaires Blaise Pascal

and to access expertise and knowledge relevant to their career goals.

Deadline: 2 December
Further Information: Daiwa Foundation

have launched a call for Swedish doctoral candidates in the humanities, social sciences, (inc. theology, religion, and law) to spend one term at a foreign academic institution.

Deadline: 1 December
Further Information: STINT

Applicants should have at least 15 years of experience, with 3 years of directly relevant experience to the position. 

The deadline for applications is 26 November.

Further Information: ERC

and postgraduates holding 4 years full time research experience the opportunity to carry out advanced research projects.

Deadline: 31 January
Further Information: ERS

advertising research, PhD positions and fellowships throughout Europe.

For the full list of positions, please refer to the Euraxess Jobs portal.

Normally a network will be composed of at least three participants such as university, research centres, commercial enterprises, non-profit or charitable organisations.

A minimum of three different partners are required in three different Member States. Above this minimum, other third countries (such as Japan) is possible.  

ITN’s will provide joint research and training, events, and network opportunities for researchers.

Deadline: 26 January
Further Information: Cordis

and the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) have established a scheme for joint funding of cooperative research projects. Up to 7 projects will be funded.

Deadline: 21 December
Further Information: JST (outline); JST (English).

Postdoctoral Position in COE, mathematics & physical sciences, Deadline: 24/11
Osaka University Assistant Professorship, Economics, Deadline: 30/11
Graduate University of Advanced Studies, Theoretical Biology, Deadline: 01/12
JAIST, Information Science, Deadline: 28/12
Ritsumeikan University (Social Sciences), Deadline: 22/11
115 jobs are currently advertised in English.
1,949 are advertised in Japanese.

humanities , theology and law. Aimed at well established researchers.

Deadline: 10 December
Further Information: Swedish Research Council

1. Faculty of Science
2. Faculty of Mathematics
3. Faculty of Engineering
4. Faculty of Information Science and Electrical Engineering
5. Faculty of Engineering Sciences
6. Faculty of Agriculture
7. Research Institute for Applied Mechanics Applicants should have a doctoral degree.

Deadline: 5 January Further information: Kyushu University

Two positions in the fields of Physics, Chemistry and Bioscience.
Two research Associate positions are also advertised for work in Bioscience and Biophysics.

Applicants should have a PhD in life science related fields, physics or chemistry.

Deadline: 31 December
Further Information: Kusumi Lab advert

Marie Curie positions advertised on the Euraxess Jobs portal.

for several permanently employed researchers working in the field of materials science for energy, the environment and resources.

Deadline: 17 December
Further Information: NIMS

have launched a call for German postdoctoral scientists and scholars to spend time at the National Institute of Informatics typically starting from 1 September 2011, for one year.

Deadline: 31 December
Further Information: DAAD (in German)

Fellowships can be awarded for one year or two years. There are three types of fellowship:

1. Year to write up a publication based on a recent doctoral dissertation
2. Years to develop a research project
3. Years to develop a research project (but also spend two years at a non-Irish institute).

Deadline: 3 December
Further Information: IRCHSS

and research institutes run by KNAW and NWO to dedicate themselves to a career in postdoctoral research. Postgraduates who are currently engaged in doctoral research or who have been awarded a doctorate in the twelve months preceding the relevant deadline.
Programme provides funding for a period of up to two years at an institution outside the Netherlands or at a Dutch institution.

Deadline: 1 December
Further Information: NWO

is to strengthen Swedish research and higher education through international cooperation by widening the scope of exchange.

Supports new international collaborations in research and higher education. Grants should mostly be used for personnel exchange, but may also be used to organise seminars, workshops, conferences, and courses.

Deadline: 1 December
Further information: STINT

This is to provide funding for three years to researchers who have just completed their doctorates (up to 3 years).

Researchers from abroad can apply.

Deadline: 6 January
Further Information: NWO

Please click on the link to be taken directly to the call information. Prior coverage can also be found in past newsletters.

1. CERN Non MemberState Fellowship, France), Deadline: 3 December
2. Honjo Foundation Graduate school study in Japan, Deadline: 30 Nov.
3. Japan Partnering Awards,   (UK-Japan (BBSRC), Deadline: 24 Nov.
4. JSPS Award for Eminent Scientists, Deadline: 10 December
5. ICEMS - Kyoto University, Deadline 31 December
6. Junior Research Associate - RIKEN, Deadline: 26 November
7. Toshiba Fellowship Programme, Deadline: 13 December

Welcome II (Portugal), Deadline: 12 December

In all, 427 grants have been awarded, worth up to 2m each.

2,873 applications were received, with 42% of these in the physical sciences and engineering field, 35.8% in the life science field, and 22.2% in the social science and humanities field.

The total acceptance ratio is 15%. By field, 35.8% in the life sciences, 45.7% in the physical sciences and engineering, and 18.5% in the social science and humanities.

By country, the UK, France and Germany have quite a lead on closest rivals. 79 grantees will be based in the United Kingdom, 71 in France, 67 in Germany. Switzerland, the next ranked country has 27 grantees. In total 21 countries will host ERC grant recipients.

By nationality, 83 grantees are German, 62 French, 41 Italian, 28 Israeli and 28 from the UK.  From non-EU nationalities, there are 11 US grantees, 5 Russian grantees, 2 Argentinian grantees and 2 Japanese grantees.  

By current country of residence there are no grantees from Japan, so the Japanese who mentioned above will already be based at a European institute. However, the number of successful researchers coming from outside Europe in this year's Starting Grant competition doubled from last year. Of these 18 incoming scientists, 12 are Europeans returning from the US.

The average age of the selected researchers is about 36 years and 26.5% are women, which is an increase from last year's 23%.

The statistics are available from the ERC. For the full list of results, see here.

Applicants were invited to form joint teams of British and Japanese scientists working on collaborative projects.

These are awarded by The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation on a triennial basis in recognition of significant scientific collaboration between British and Japanese research teams. They were established in 1992 and subsequently renamed to commemorate the late Lord Adrian, a founding Trustee of the Foundation, at whose initiative the Prizes were established.

Applications are handled by the Foundation with an assessment conducted by a panel of Fellows of The Royal Society.

Previous Daiwa Adrian Prizes have supported new frontiers in areas as diverse as antibiotics research, plasma physics, aerospace exploration and asthma research.
Selected projects include partnerships between:

1. Oxford University and Kyoto University - Evolutionary and Spatial Dynamics of Human Viral Pathogens
2. Bristol University and Hokkaido University - Photonic quantum information science and technology
3. Portsmouth University and Kyoto University - Non-linear cosmological perturbations
4. Cambridge University and Tokyo University -Nonlinear dynamics of cortical neurons and gamma oscillations
5. Sainsbury Laboratory and Iwate Biotechnology Research Centre - Use of genomics to understand plant-pathogen interactions
6. Imperial College London and Nagoya/Tokai/Yamaguchi/Osaka Universities - Phase space analysis of partial differential equations

Further Information: Daiwa Anglo Japanese Foundation

The call was opened earlier this year with the deadline set for June, 2010.
In total 5 applications were received of which two were selected.

The joint call supports cooperative research exchange, joint seminars and researcher exchanges over a period of three years.

The two selected projects include projects between one between Gifu University Hospital and Copenhagen University; and another between Kobe University and Copenhagen University.

Further Information:
JST (in Japanese)
DASTI

The project objective is to appoint promising young researchers as program-specific faculty members (associate professor/assistant professor) and support their research activities on themes of their own choice, so as to develop visionary researchers who will pioneer new paths in their respective academic fields.

The call information stated that “priority will be given to female researchers and non-Japanese researchers if multiple researchers are judged to have equivalent abilities, based on a fair evaluation”. Of the 19 nominated awardees, 17 are male,17 are Japanese. In previous years, Kyoto University has released detailed statistics on applicants and awardees. These will be presented when they become available.

Further information and profiles of the nominated candidates: Kyoto University.

This call attracted a lot of interest with 36 applications submitted. 4 proposals have been selected.

The selected projects will allow research exchange, joint seminars and other forms of cooperation over a three year period.

The selected projects include partnerships between Tsukuba University and Complutense University of Madrid, Mie University and Complutense University of Madrid, Shikuoka University and the Technical University of Madrid,  Tokyo University of Science and the Institut Català de Nanotecnologia. 

Further Information:
JST (in Japanese)
MICINN

The registration deadline is 13 December.
Speakers are from the USA, Europe, Japan, & Canada.

Abstract Deadline: 13 December
Location: Kyoto
Date: 24-6 January
Further Information: Osaka University

Date: 22-24 November
Location: Kyushu University
Further Details: Kyushu University

to provide young European and Japanese researchers with opportunities to receive lectures from leading international experts.

Conference theme: “Cutting Edge Immunology and its Clinical Application”.
Dates: 1-6 March, in Amsterdam.

Further information: JSPS  / ESF

Many events will celebrate this occasion, including seminars, symposiums, musical events.

See DJ150 for full details

Manga in the social construction of a gendered hierarchy of employment relations in the Japanese firm”

Date: 22 November
Location: DIJ Tokyo
Further Information: DIJ

Date: 29/11-1/12
Location: Tokyo
Further Information: IoT

Date: 22 November
Location: GRIPS (Tokyo)

Further Information & registration: GRIPS

To be held on 2-3 December.

Further Information: Kyoto University

Five symposia will address the following topics:

1. Advanced Photocatalytic Materials,
2. Intermetallic Catalysts for Environmental/energy Applications,
3. Functional Nanoporous Materials,
4. Functional Geomaterials for Sustainable Development,
5. Theoretical Study of Environmental Remediation Materials

Key deadlines:
Final Registration: 15 Dec.
Abstract Submission: 15 Dec.
Location: NIMS, Tsukuba

Further Information: NIMS

will co-organize the "Rencontre Scientifique Francophone de Tokyo (RSFT)", a symposium where three researchers and/or students present their research work.

Date: 27 November
Further details: Sciencescope

Will feature speakers from LAAS-CNRS, City University (London), the University of Tokyo, the University of Tsukuba.

Registration deadline: 30 November
Location: Tokyo
Date: 16-7 December

Further information: JST

Abstracts to be received by 30 November.
Further Information: Keio University

See here for the map:

From 8pm on Friday, 26 November.

Please call me if you have any difficulty finding the bar: 090 5153 0886

how to strengthen innovative performance and knowledge generation is an increasingly important issue.

So far, there have been no real studies of the factors that contribute to scientific productivity in Japan. This paper, published by the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) and the Institute of Innovation Research at Hitotsubashi University is one of the first.

Interestingly, the study finds that papers that include non-Japanese researchers top 1% of papers tend to derive from groups where there  are more than Japanese researchers involved.

The study, published on 5 November, sought to evaluate the knowledge production process through a large scale questionnaire survey with researchers in Japanese institutes. A comparative survey is also now being undertaken in America by the Georgia Institute of Technology. Citations during the period 2001-6 are used for the bibliometric analysis, combined with statistical data drawn from 2,100 questionnaire responses from Japanese academics.

The main findings of the study are as follows:

1. High Levels of Research Group Diversity are found in the Top 1% of Citations

The top 1% of cited papers tend to derive from research teams that comprise a high level of diversity, in terms of disciplinary background, nationality, and research centre.
For instance, for the top 1% of citations, there are higher levels of disciplinary diversity. 48% of these derive from groups comprising members of various disciplinary backgrounds. For normal papers, 40% are from different disciplinary backgrounds.

With nationality, the top 1% of papers tend to derive from groups where there  are more than Japanese researchers involved. Here, 48% of the top 1% of papers are from groups where there is non-Japanese involvement. For normal papers, the proportion is 31%.
Similar trends are witnessed for specialist skills (greater diversity leads to higher citations); and sectors (researchers from more sectors tend to be in the top citations).

Single authored papers are less likely to make it into the top 1%. Only 3% of the top 1% of citations are single authored papers; by contrast, for papers with normal citations 6.9% are solo-authored.

2. Research Management is likely to have a high degree of influence on research performance

Looking at the top 1% of citations, the researchers analysed this against the influence of various factors from the questionnaire survey. Here they discern that for obtaining publications in the top 1% of citations, the following factors are important

• teams that include the participation of young and postdoctoral researchers.
• The cultivation of a community of researchers in new fields and research areas.
• For the publication and application of the research, a team based on different skill sets is important.
• For the realisation of research projects the setting of an ambitious target is important.

3. Top Cited Papers are Likely to link strongly with patents and collaborative research

According to the analysis performed, in contrast to normal publications, the top 1% of citations tend to have a stronger output and impact in terms of patents, collaborative research, personnel development, and start-ups.

• Papers produced by those that have recently obtained their PhD or postdocs tend to be highly cited papers

Analysing the status of the first author against the survey results, the highly cited papers tend to include more postdoctoral level researchers or those that have just completed their doctoral studies. 37% of the highly cited papers include such authors. In the normal papers this level is 29%.

Further Information:

NISTEP, (2010), Knowledge Creation Process in Science: Basic findings from the large-scale survey of researchers in Japan, November 2010 (in Japanese)

Mainichi Shinbun, (2010)

This was the 13th such prize awarded, given this year to Dr Shuichi Murakami from Tokyo Institute of Technology.

The Millennium Science Forum was first established in 1993, with the Sir Martin Wood prize established to recognise the work of younger researchers who have made an outstanding contribution to the field of condensed matter science. Sir Martin Wood is the founder of Oxford Instruments, who co-sponsor the award with the British Embassy. 

The eligibility for applicants is that they are under 40 years of age, have performed their research at a Japanese research institute, and specialise in the field of condensed matter science.

The award comprises 500,000 yen and the opportunity to spend time in the UK delivering lectures at universities.
Applications and nominations for the prize opened in April, with the deadline in August.
In total, 21 applications were received. 13 in experimental work, 8 in theoretical work. The review panel assessed these applications during September.

Theory of the Spin-Hall Effect

The winner of the prize, Dr Shuichi Murakami, was born in 1970, and has been based at Tokyo Institute of Technology since 2007. He received his undergraduate and doctoral degrees from the University of Tokyo. In 2000 he was a visiting scholar at Stanford University. He is also a visiting scholar on the PRESTO programme operated by the Japan Science and Technology Agency.

The citation for his Sir Martin Wood Prize was as follows:

“Theoretical predictions of spin-hall effect in semiconductors and metals, and similar effect of light, and pioneering studies on quantum spin hall effect on the surfaces of insulators”.

Dr Murakami has been awarded many prizes for his scientific achievements, with 2010 being a particularly busy year. In 2007 he was awarded the Condensed Matter Science Prize, the Young Scientist Award of the Physical Society of Japan (2007), the TITECH Strategic Research Prize (2008), the Marubun Research Promotion Foundation Prize  (2010), the Ministry of Education Minister Prize (2010), and the Honda Memorial Research Prize (2010).

Above: Dr Murakami receives
his award from Sir Martin Wood

Following the prize ceremony, Professor Tomas Jungwirth from the University of Nottingham and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic provided a lecture on research being undertaken into spintronics and nanoelectronics. Dr Murakami then presented his own research on the topic.

Further Information:

Shuichi Murakami Laboratory at TITECH
Oxford Instruments
Millennium Science Forum
British Embassy Science and Innovation Section

The main findings are that investments in R&D decreased only moderately in the light of the economic downturn which began in 2008.

The data is drawn from a database of 2000 companies throughout the world (see here for the dataset), focusing in particular on the top 1400 companies.

The report finds that during the period between 2008 and 2009, net sales for the companies in the sample declined by 10.1%. and profits by 21%. Despite such declines, R&D investments decreased by only -1.9%. For  the 400 firms in the European Union which are included in the dataset, a decline of -2.6% was witnessed.

In all, the 1400 companies invested €402.2bn in R&D during 2009.

Sectoral Trends

The pharmaceutical sector increased their expenditure on R&D by 5.3% in 2008. Large pharmaceutical companies are also increasing their R&D capacity through mergers and acquisitions, often involving biotech firms. For instance, Roche acquired Genentech from the USA, Pfizer acquired Wyeth in the USA, Takeda Pharmaceuticals acquired Millennium pharmaceuticals.

The automobiles sector was most severely affected by the economic crisis. Overall there was a 11.6% decline in R&D expenditure. At some companies there were quite dramatic reductions. Ford decreased their expenditures by ­ 32.4%, Renault by ­26.5% and General Motors by ­24.1%.

For the alternative energy sector, rapid growth continued to be witnessed, both in the number of firms entering the database in this sector, and their R&D activities. Expenditure increased year on year by 28.7%.

Geographic Differences

EU companies reduced their R&D investment by 2.6%. This is roughly half of the reduction of their US counterparts (­5.1%), despite showing similar drops in sales (around ­10%) and a significantly higher drop in profits (­13.0% vs ­1.4%).

Japanese companies maintained their level of R&D investment from the previous year, despite large drops in sales (around ­10%) and a dramatic drop in profits (­88.2%).
In some Asian countries, high R&D growth continued with Chinese companies increasing their investments by 40.0%, Indian companies by 27.3%, Hong Kong companies by 14.8%, South Korea companies by 9.1% and Taiwan companies by 3.1%.

The number of these Asian firms in the dataset used for the analysis  is also increasing. The number of Chinese firms increased by 6, Taiwanese and South Korean by 4, Japanese by 3, and Indian, Hong Kong and Singaporean firms by 2. Twenty-seven US firms left the scoreboard.

Within the EU, German, French and UK companies constitute more than two thirds of the total R&D investment of the EU Scoreboard companies.

The top ten European companies are Volkeswagen, Nokia, Sonofi-Aventis, Siemens, Daimler, Glaxosmithkline, Robert Bosch, AstraZeneca, Bayer, and EADS.

Spanish companies have also substantially increased their R&D investments (15.4%), despite the downturn (sales dropped by 6.4%). This is explained by important increases in top Spanish companies such as Telefonica (16%) and Acciona (29%), and the inclusion of top players such as Banco Santander (18%).

Further Information:
JRC, (2010), Monitoring Industrial Research: the 2010 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard,

The overall budget request is ¥3.6 trillion (€32bn), broadly in line with this year’s budget allocation.

Next year’s budget is to apportioned as follows:

1. 37% to prioritised schemes and programmes (€11bn)
2. 63% to university operating budgets (€20bn)

This year the CSTP are assigning relative priorities to the budget formulation process and working with different ministries through the Action Plan. Such a plan will be introduced on an annual basis to set out the priorities for tackling the major challenges facing Japan in the period up to 2020.  It is intended to avoid much of the duplication and overlap that was occurring between different Ministry budget requests and enhance the levels of coordination between different ministries. 

For the 2011 budget, the Action Plan has placed importance on addressing objectives regarding green innovation and life innovation as first introduced in the New Growth Strategy published last December.

New Programmes

There are 65 new programmes with a budget more than Y100m.

For the continued projects or programmes, there are 253 of these. 

At a budgetary level, the Green and Life Innovation fields sees proposed budgets of €1.6bn and €1.13bn respectively, including both new and continued schemes.

Some of the newly proposed programme highlights include the following:

1. Tenure Track System (MEXT), Budget: €236m
2. Women Researcher support funds (MEXT), Budget: €27m
3. Researcher Administrator System (MEXT), Budget: €44m

Programme to send young researchers on short term overseas stays (MEXT), Budget:  €177m

Next Steps

Now that the prioritisation has been performed, the overall budget will be decided in December, following negotiation with the Ministry of Finance.

References

CSTP, (2010)
CSTP, (2010)

Elsewhere, Japanese policy makers and funding organisations are also now talking more about developing an “Asian Research Area”, seeking greater cooperation and exchange with other partners in Asia who are increasingly active in R&D (we will cover this topic in a later newsletter). There are many hints and suggestions that the geography of science and innovation is shifting and changing.

A new report by UNESCO empirically confirms some of these changes, finding that “Europe, Japan and the USA may still dominate research and development (R&D) but they are increasingly being challenged by the emerging economies and above all by China”.  
The UNESCO Science Report 2010, published on 10 November, provides a comprehensive overview of the trends in expenditure on R&D, trends in the number of researchers, publications, patents, and also provides some individual country studies. On each of these statistics the diminished share of EU, North American and Japanese activities becomes apparent, with the exception of patenting.

The report itself is written by experts in science and technology policy from UNU-Merit at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands. They are also responsible for the European Innovation Scoreboard that we covered a few months ago (here). In the UNESCO Science Report, individual country/region studies, which include the European Union, Japan, China, the United States, India, Brazil, Russia, Sub-Saharan Africa and other countries are written by in-country experts.

The full report comprises over 500 pages. Below is a summary of some of the main findings:

Trends in Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (GERD)

Firstly, it should be noted that there has been a gradual tilting of World Gross Domestic Product (GDP) towards Asia. The share of World GDP has declined slightly for North America and the European Union (24.7% to 22.8% for North America between 2002 and 2007; and from 25.3% to 22.5% for the European Union). The share for Asia has increase from 31.0% to 34.5% during the same period. Japan’s share of World GDP has decreased from 7.4% to 6.5%; China’s share has increased from 7.9% to 10.7%.  Quite accurately, the report authors note that it “is quite starting” that Asian GDP now surpasses that of both Europe and North America. Much of the growth is driven by China, India and the Republic of Korea.

For R&D, the world devoted 1.7% of GDP to R&D in 2007, a share that has remained stable since 2002. However, as the World economy has grown in monetary terms US$ 1,146 billion is spent, an increase of 45% over 2002. This is slightly higher than the rise in GDP over the same period (43%).

As the figure above shows, for the proportion of Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (GERD) Asia is now second behind the USA in terms of World GERD, accounting for 32.2% at $369.3bn. Europe as a whole is now third, accounting for 27.4% of GERD at $314.0bn. North America is still where most expenditure on R&D occurs (34.9%) at $399.3bn.

Researchers

A similar story to the above can also be found with the number of researchers. There are both more researchers in Asia now (2.9m) than both North America (1.5m) and Europe (2.1m), or the European Union (1.448).

China (1.423m) is now very close to both the European Union and North America in terms of the number of researchers.

Amongst European countries, Germany has the most researchers at 290,000, followed by the UK (254,000) and France 215,000).

Publications

The USA is still the country which leads the world when it comes to scientific output in absolute terms. However, its world share has fallen more than any other country over the past six years.

The leading region for this indicator, the EU, has also seen its share dip by four percentage points to less than 37%.  By contrast, China’s share has more than doubled in just six years and now represents more than 10% of the world total, second only to the USA. Japan and Germany are now on a par at just under 8%. The UK accounts for 7.2% and France 5.8%.

By area of specialisation (figure below), the black octagon represents the average, so the lines outside this octagon indicate a better-than-average performance in a given field. France is  specialised in mathematics, physics, and ßearth and science.  For Japan, it has strengths in physics, chemistry, engineering and technology. Both the USA and UK specialize in biomedical research, clinical medicine and Earth and space.

China can be seen as having strengths in engineering and technology, chemistry, physics and

mathematics. Russia is particularly strong in physics, mathematics, and earth and space.

Patents

The authors of the report note that “Of all the indicators used in the UNESCO Science Report, it is the patent indicator which points most strikingly to the inequality of knowledge creation at the global level”. Indeed, it is in patenting that the triad of Japan, North America and Europe retain their dominance. China and other developing countries may be successfully developing publications, employing researchers and investing in R&D. They are not yet producing patentable technologies or ideas at a level similar to other technologically advanced countries.

The overall dominance of the USA is striking. This highlights the US technology
market’s role as the world’s leading private market for technology licenses. North America accounts for 54.2% of USPTO patents. Japan, Germany and the Republic of Korea are the other countries with the most patent-holders. India’s share amounts to barely 0.2% of all Triadic patents, a share comparable to that of Brazil (0.1%) and Russia (0.2%). Although China’s share has increased, it still only accounts for 4.7% of USPTO patents and 0.5% of triadic patents.

Germany accounts for 6.2% of USPTO patents as of 2007, down from 7.3%. The UK accounts for 2.6%, down from 2.7%. The full report is available from the following link: UNESCO, (2010), UNESCO Science Report 2010;