G20 research and innovation scorecard 2024

Citation impact of G20 research

Our second figure delves into the citation impact of research produced by each G20 country, offering a detailed look at how often research papers are referenced in subsequent studies.

Key indicators:

• Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI): This metric measures the significance of a research paper based on how often it is cited, normalized against the global average for its field and year of publication. A CNCI value greater than 1.0 indicates that a paper is cited more frequently than the world average.
• Collaborative CNCI (Collab CNCI): Acknowledging the growing trend of research collaboration, this metric adjusts for various collaboration types: domestic single institution, domestic multi-institution, international bilateral, trilateral and quadrilateral plus. It provides a more nuanced view of citation impact by factoring in the collaborative nature of research.
• Normalized Patent Citation Impact^TM: This newly introduced metric assesses the real-world impact of research by examining citations in patents. It normalizes citation counts by the year of publication and considers the variance in citation rates across different fields, with medical research typically having higher Normalized Patent Citation Impact than arts-related research.

Visualization tools:

• Impact Profile: This profile shows the distribution of CNCI values for a sample of journal papers, offering a comprehensive perspective beyond a single average. Papers are categorized as uncited or assigned to various citation categories, allowing for direct visual comparison with the world average.

Explore the interactive figure to understand the citation impact of G20 research and how it reflects both academic influence and real-world applicability.

* Mainland China includes data from Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR.

Trends in international research collaboration

Growth in collaboration

We can see that overall total publication output has flattened or dipped in recent years across many regions, following a surge in scholarly research following the unprecedented global effort to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.

This collaborative effort also feeds into the rise in international collaboration in research, with the majority of the world’s most highly-cited research now involving authors from multiple countries and regions. This trend has led to a decrease in the proportion of purely domestic research contributing to a country’s research base and less to its overall national impact. The chart on the left in Figure 3 illustrates this growth in collaboration.

• Country-specific trends: Mainland China and Indonesia are experiencing unique trends. Mainland China’s annual research output has more than tripled over the past decade but its collaboration rate hasn’t kept pace with the rapid expansion in domestic research. Conversely, Indonesia is expanding its domestic research base after a period dominated by international collaboration.
• Regional collaboration: In the African and European Unions, international research papers can be categorized into intraregional (all authors within each union) and interregional (at least one author from outside the union).
• Open access research: The chart on the right highlights the trends and patterns in open access (OA) research publication. The shift towards OA research publication is accelerating in response to demands from research funders, including governments. In OA, the author or funder pays for publication, making the research freely accessible to all, unlike traditional subscription-based models.

Explore Figure 3 to see the detailed trends in international collaboration and the rise of open access research.

* Mainland China includes data from Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR.

Research Footprints across disciplines

Visualizing research impact

Research Footprints provide a detailed view of how research activities and performance measures vary across disciplines, illustrating a country’s or region’s impact on the global research landscape. Our footprints use eight major discipline groups, which have broadly similar publication and citation patterns (see the key in the lower right of the chart).

Key features:

• Impact distribution: The left chart displays the distribution of Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI), Collaborative CNCI, and Normalized Patent Citation Impact by discipline. This allows for a comparison of each country’s or region’s research impact against the world average.
• Disciplinary proportions: The chart on the right compares each member’s overall research output in each discipline with the average proportion across all G20 members. It also shows the proportion of each discipline’s output that is either international or open access, compared to the G20 averages. For example, a figure of 2 for All Papers indicates that the proportion of output in a particular field is twice the average across all G20 members, highlighting a country’s or region’s greater focus on that field.
• Identify strengths and weaknesses: By comparing the profiles between the two charts, you can identify a country’s or region’s relative strengths and weaknesses in various research disciplines.
• Trend analysis: Trend charts are also included, showing the CNCI and paper counts by discipline over the last decade, providing a historical perspective on research impact and output.

Explore these Research Footprints to gain insights into the disciplinary focus and impact of G20 countries on the global research stage.

* Mainland China includes data from Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR.

Research Footprints and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Contribution to the SDGs

Figure 5 in this year’s report presents Research Footprints that highlight each country’s contribution to research aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Adopted in 2015, the 17 SDGs are part of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The 17th SDG, “Partnerships for the Goals,” primarily calls on governments to collaborate, so while there is less scope for academia to provide a meaningful contribution, researchers can play a role in holding governments accountable.

Key features:

• Impact distribution by SDG: The left chart displays the distribution of Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI), Collaborative CNCI, and Normalized Patent Citation Impact for research related to each SDG. This provides a comparison of each country’s or region’s research impact against the world average.
• SDG output proportions: The right chart shows how each country’s research output related to the SDGs compares to the average proportion for all G20 members. It also highlights the proportion of SDG-related research that is international or open access, compared to the G20 averages.
• Identifying priorities and effectiveness: By comparing the profiles between the two charts, you can identify where each country’s or region’s research priorities lie and assess how effectively their research contributes to addressing global challenges.

Explore Figure 5 to see how G20 members are advancing research towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals and contributing to solving the world’s most pressing issues.

* Mainland China includes data from Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR.

Trends in international research collaboration

Growth of collaboration

As highlighted in Figure 3, international collaboration in research has significantly increased over the past decades, with most of the world’s highly-cited research involving authors from multiple countries. Figure 6 details these collaborations, illustrating the partnerships between G20 members and their most frequent collaborators.

Key features:

• Top collaborative partners: For each G20 member, the chart highlights the ten most frequent collaborative partners and shows the trend over time.
• Types of partnerships: The chart indicates whether these collaborations are predominantly bilateral, trilateral, or involve larger groups of countries/regions.
• Regional variations: While the U.S. is the most common collaborative partner for most members, there are notable regional variations. For instance:
  • Saudi Arabia frequently collaborates with Egypt, Pakistan and India.
  • Indonesia has strong research ties with Japan, Malaysia and Australia.
  • Mainland China focuses more on bilateral partnerships.
• New* Union collaborations: The charts for the regions of the African Union and European Union show their external partners, providing a clear view of their international collaborative landscape.

Explore Figure 6 to understand the dynamic nature of international research collaboration and see who is partnering with whom across the G20 nations.

* Mainland China includes data from Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR.

Collaborative research impact

Our final figure highlights the impact of each G20 member’s research collaborations. This includes trends in Collaborative Category Normalized Citation Impact (Collab CNCI) with their five leading partners and a Collaborative Impact Profile across all the member’s research papers.

Key indicators:

• Collaborative CNCI: This metric normalizes citation impact against research field, document type, publication year and collaboration class (domestic single institution, domestic multi-institution, international bilateral, international trilateral and international quadrilateral plus). Values greater than 1.0 indicate that a paper is cited more often than the world average.
• Collab CNCI trends: The chart shows the trend in Collab CNCI for each of the five leading partners of a G20 member, illustrating how collaboration impacts citation rates over time.
• Collaborative Impact Profile:
  • Impact Distribution: This profile combines an Impact Profile with Collab CNCI, showing the distribution of Collab CNCI values for each collaboration class. Papers are categorized as either uncited or assigned to various citation categories, allowing for a direct visual comparison with the world average.
  • Collaboration Classes: The distribution of each member’s output by collaboration class (e.g., domestic single institution, international bilateral) is displayed below the Impact Profile. This provides insight into how different types of collaborations affect research impact

Key considerations: It’s important to remember that each collaboration class is compared against other papers from the same class globally. This means that while domestic single institution papers typically receive fewer citations than internationally collaborative papers, the chart shows how a country’s domestic output compares against domestic output worldwide.

Explore this final figure to understand the nuanced impact of international collaborations on research citation and to see how each G20 member’s collaborative efforts are shaping their research influence globally.

* Mainland China includes data from Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR.