Publication: The end of the "European Paradox"
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2012-10-11
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Springer Verlag
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Abstract
This paper evaluates the European Paradox according to which Europe plays a
leading world role in terms of scientific excellence, measured in terms of the number of
publications, but lacks the entrepreneurial capacity of the US to transform this excellent
performance into innovation, growth, and jobs. Citation distributions for the US, the
European Union (EU), and the Rest of the World are evaluated using a pair of high and
low impact indicators, as well as the mean citation rate (MCR). The dataset consists of 3.6
million articles published in 1998 2002 with a common 5 year citation window. The
analysis is carried at a low aggregation level, namely, the 219 sub fields identified with the
Web of Science categories distinguished by Thomson Scientific. The problems posed by
international co authorship and the multiple assignments of articles to sub fields are solved
following a multiplicative strategy. We find that, although the EU has more publications
than the US in 113 out of 219 sub fields, the US is ahead of the EU in 189 sub fields in
terms of the high impact indicator, and in 163 sub fields in terms of the low impact
indicator. Finally, we verify that using the high impact indicator the US/EU gap is usually
greater than when using the MCR.
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Citation impact, Research performance, US/European Union gap, High- and low-impact indicators, Mean citation rate