Using it wisely

Weighing a country's R&D spend against the size of its science workforce gives an indication of its research efficiency. Of the ten most improved countries in the index between 2012 and 2015, China has the biggest research budget and workforce, and contributes the most to the index. The United Kingdom is a strong performer, but spends less on a smaller workforce than China and Germany.

Bang for buck

When dividing a country's total number of articles in the index (AC) with their R&D spending and research workforce, the United Kingdom is the most efficient at maximizing its output per research dollar spent. (AC data are for 2015. GERD and researcher numbers data are from 2013. Countries with data available were included in analysis.)boxed-text