• 中国科学学与科技政策研究会
  • 中国科学院科技战略咨询研究院
  • 清华大学科学技术与社会研究中心
ISSN 1003-2053 CN 11-1805/G3

科学学研究 ›› 2023, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (7): 1153-1163.

• 科学学理论与方法 •    下一篇

世界科学活动中心研究———基于高质量科学家流动

韩芳1,张汝昊2,2,陈光3,袁军鹏1   

  1. 1. 中国科学院文献情报中心
    2.
    3. 中国科学院学部工作局
  • 收稿日期:2022-06-01 修回日期:2022-07-21 出版日期:2023-07-15 发布日期:2023-07-15
  • 通讯作者: 陈光
  • 基金资助:
    百年全球科技人才流动趋势与规律研究

Analysis of world scientific activity center based on the flows of high-quality scientists

  • Received:2022-06-01 Revised:2022-07-21 Online:2023-07-15 Published:2023-07-15
  • Contact: Guang Chen

摘要: 高质量科学家的流动代表了科学知识的传播,基于高质量科学家的流动刻画近代世界科学活动中心的转移规律,对于国家制定科技战略,推动科技进步具有重要意义。该研究基于Scopus数据库1921-2020年发表的论文数据,提取高质量科学家的跨国流动序列,从而对近百年来世界科学活动中心的转移进行分析,并从学科层次研究科学活动中心的转移规律。研究结果显示:(1)科学活动中心与学科活动中心具有不唯一性,且随时间呈现多中心化,美国、英国一直占据科学活动中心位置,其次为德、意等发达国家,是多个阶段的世界科学活动中心与学科活动中心;(2)科学活动中心与学科活动中心具有转移性,且转移方向不是单向的,但二者的演化具有一致性,即科学活动中心可视为不同学科活动中心的堆叠效应;(3)不同时期不同学科对于科学活动中心形成的贡献度不同,随着科学多元化与学科交叉融合,这种贡献差异性降低;(4)中国自2004年成为世界科学活动中心之一,但与发达国家相比仍有较大差距,需进一步加大科研投入力度,促进学科平衡发展。

Abstract: The concept of “world scientific activity center” was proposed by J. D. Bernal in the year of 1957, and have raised many interests from globle researchers. Study the matastasis rule of world scientific activity center is of importance to the policy makers for establishing the R&D development strategies. Most of the previous studies analyzed the matastasis rule of the world scientific activity center based on the researchers’ achievements. However, this method is not suitable at present under the background of global integration, while the collaboration among researchers increasing greatly. The transnational flows of high-quality scientists was regarded as can be the representive of vital knowledge spreading. Previous researches have validated this based on study the matastasis of Nobel prize winners or the authors of top journals. They contributed to understand the related rule of world scientific activity center at present. However, these studies also have some limitations. Such as they only studied a small group of researchers, thus the whole phenomenon of the scientists transfer could not be reflected. Based on the above analysis, this paper collects the scientific papers published from 1921 to 2020 in the Scopus database, extracts the transnational flow sequence of each high-quality scientists, which are the top1% h-index researchers in each disciplines of the Scopus database, from these papers, and systematically analyzes the matastasis rule of world scientific activity center in the 100 years both in the whole level and the disciplinary level. Specially, the ten important disciplines including agricultural and biological sciences, biochemistry, genetics and molecular biolog, physics and astronomy, multidisciplinary, neuroscience, immunology and microbiology, materials science, chemistry, medicine, and engineering are selected into study, due to their intimate relationships with the world scientific activity center proven by previous studies. Results show that, first, the world scientific center or disciplinary activity center is not sole. There could be more than one world scientific center or disciplinary activity center in the same period. For example, the USA, UK, Germany and Italy have been the world scientific activity centers in multible periods and among various disciplines. Second, both the world scientific activity center and the disciplinary activity center could transfer over time, and the transfer direction was not one-way. Besides, the transfer process of these two kind of centers are synchronous. When a region was the world scientific activity center, it was often several disciplines’ activity center, and vice versa. For example, the USA was almost all the disciplines’ activity centers in the entire period. Thus the world scientific activity center could be regarded as the additive effect of the different disciplines. Third, different disciplines contributed differently to the formation of scientific activity center in the certain period. The diversified development of science and the interdisciplinary integration have moderated the difference, it is hard to distinguish which disciplines have the higher contribution degrees. Last, China has been the world scientifc activity center since the year of 2004. But it still has a significant gap from the developed countries. The disciplines of multidisciplinary, medicine and neuroscience still need to be developed in the future. Specially, significant attentions should be paid to the emerged scientific and technological domains, the R&D input should be raised and the balance development among disciplines should be also sidelined in the future.