The publication of scientific articles helps gauge how well Canada is fostering the creation of knowledge. Scientific articles—most of which come from the academic community—measure the scope and depth of a country’s scientific research. Universities produce the scientists and engineers whose discoveries and innovations are essential to a country’s continued prosperity. Leading-edge science is often the result of innovative industries collaborating with science and engineering specialists. A country’s ability to sustain a strong science base—measured in part by the publication of scientific articles—is thus an indicator of its advanced innovation capacity.
Canada moves up from a “C” to a “B” grade for scientific articles in this report card. However, Canada’s ranking drops from 6th to 8th overall as Norway and Australia move ahead. Canada performs better than science powerhouses such as the U.S. and U.K., as well as technology leaders such as Germany and Japan. But Canada ranks behind peer countries with smaller populations where innovative science and technology output is more intensive.
Canada has a high public share of R&D financing spent by university researchers, something that encourages relatively more publications. Some of Canada’s peer countries, on the other hand, have a higher share of industry funding for R&D, which seems to encourage
patenting over publishing. Canada’s growing rate of patenting during the 1990s may therefore have been helped, paradoxically, by the simultaneous reduction in university funding. While Canadian universities were experiencing cutbacks, the high-technology boom was gathering momentum, encouraging qualified scientists and engineers to move from academia to industry. So although Canada saw a reduction in publications in the late 1990's, Canadian industry became leaders at adopting and patenting new digital general-purpose information and communications technologies.
Although Canada has moved up from a “C” to a “B” in this report card, it has fallen in the rankings from 6th place to 8th place overall. Canada scores a “B” thanks to improved performance relative to the best- and worst-ranked countries. Top-place Switzerland’s share of published scientific articles has not grown as much as Canada’s share, while bottom-place Japan’s share has fallen over the past few years.
Conversely, Canada’s drop from 6th place 8th place is due to greater improvements in Australia and Norway. Between 2005 and 2007, the proportion of scientific articles published in Canada grew by 5 per cent—in Australia and Norway, it grew by 8 per cent and 9.7 per cent, respectively.
Countries at the top of the class continue to raise the bar of excellence for their peers. Canada must commit to performing at the cutting edge and attracting the brightest students to careers in science and engineering or it will keep losing ground to other countries also determined to succeed in science.
Use the pull-down menu to compare Canada’s publication rate for scientific articles with that of its peers.
Relative intensity is a measure of comparative advantage. Countries with larger populations have more diversified economies than smaller countries. In absolute terms, larger countries may have more scientists and technologists and produce more science and technology. But their science and technology sectors may be a less important source of economic gain, proportionately, than other sectors. Smaller countries with economies more specialized in particular industries—such as science and technology, in this case—can therefore have a comparative advantage when competing on a global scale.