National Bibliometric Report 2002-2007

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This report uses the Scopus Citation and Abstract Database to analyse New Zealand publications and citations in scientific journals to determine share, impact and collaboration during 2002 to 2007.

Major findings

  • The rate and impact of New Zealand publications has increased during the period 2002-2007. This is especially so in the tertiary education sector, which appears to be associated with changes to tertiary sector research funding.
  • While the impact of New Zealand publications is generally average for an OECD nation, there are certain disciplines (especially in the medical sciences) where New Zealand research has a higher than average impact. This is the same as in previous bibliometric findings.
  • New Zealand is a cost effective place to do research. It has a comparatively high rate of publication per dollar of R&D expenditure.

Publication output

For the period 2002-2007, Scopus recorded a total of 40,376 publications with at least one author affiliated to a New Zealand institution: an average of 6,729 per year.

Publication rate

In the period 2002-2007, New Zealand’s annual publication rate increased by 56 percent. In comparison, the previous bibliometric report showed no significant change in New Zealand’s publication rate between 1996 and 2001. While all sectors increased their publication rate between 2002 and 2007, the tertiary education sector has shown the largest increase.

Scientific productivity

Between 2002 and 2007, New Zealand ranked eleventh in the OECD in research publications per capita, just behind the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. New Zealand ranked second in publications per dollar spent on basic research, fourth in publications per dollar of gross expenditure on research and development (GERD), and fourteenth in publications per researcher. New Zealand’s international rankings have not changed significantly since the previous bibliometric report in 2005.

Areas of focus

Publications with at least one New Zealand author made up 0.7 percent of total OECD publications between 2002 and 2007. The subjects where New Zealand was most prolific (contributing greater than 1.4 percent of total OECD publications) were:

  • Agricultural and Biological Sciences.
  • Environmental Science.
  • Veterinary Science.
  • Business, Management and Accounting.
  • Social Sciences.
  • Earth and Planetary Science.

Areas of impact

Overall, the subject-normalised impact of New Zealand publications between 2002 and 2006 has been slightly below the OECD average. Disciplines where New Zealand has an above average impact tend to be clustered in the medical sciences.

Linkages

84 percent of New Zealand scientific publications during 2002-2007 involved multiple authors, 70 percent involved multiple institutions, and 44 percent involved multiple countries. In 2007 New Zealand researchers co-authored publications with authors from 125 countries. By far the most common international co-authoring occurred with co-authors from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. Other countries or regions that we collaborate with reasonably often include Canada, Germany, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Italy, South East Asia, China and Sweden.

Tertiary Education Institutions

For the set of New Zealand tertiary education institutions, the University of Auckland and the University of Otago recorded the highest publication output during the period 2002-2007. All major tertiary education institutions showed increasing publication impact during this period. In 2006 publications from six universities (Auckland, Otago, Victoria, Canterbury, Massey and Waikato) had a subject-normalised impact greater than the OECD average.

Crown Research Institutes

For the set of New Zealand Crown Research Institutes (CRIs), the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA), AgResearch and Landcare Research recorded the highest publication output during the period 2002-2007. They have three of the highest four publication impact of the CRIs. They are also the only CRIs to publish papers with a subject-normalised impact above the OECD average for at least four of the years between 2002 and 2006.

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Page updated 30 Jun 2010