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The latent structure of global scientific development

Nature Human Behaviour volume 6, pages 1206–1217 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Science is essential to innovation and economic prosperity. Although studies have shown that national scientific development is affected by geographic, historic and economic factors, it remains unclear whether there are universal structures and trajectories of national scientific development that can inform forecasting and policy-making. Here, by examining the scientific ‘exports’—publications that are indexed in international databases—of countries, we reveal a three-cluster structure in the relatedness network of disciplines that underpin national scientific development and the organization of global science. Tracing the evolution of national research portfolios reveals that while nations are proceeding to more diverse research profiles individually, scientific production is increasingly specialized in global science over the past decades. By uncovering the underlying structure of scientific development and connecting it with economic development, our results may offer a new perspective on the evolution of global science.

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Fig. 1: Disciplinary specialization reflects geographical, historical and economic factors.
Fig. 2: The structure of the disciplinary proximity network and national development.
Fig. 3: The principle of relatedness dictates the development and loss of competencies.
Fig. 4: Nestedness and modularity of global science.
Fig. 5: Scientific production is correlated with national development indicators.

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Data availability

Data used in this study are available at https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Untitled_Item/13623035/3

Code availability

The code used for data processing and analysis is available at https://github.com/yy/national-science-exports

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Acknowledgements

L.M., D.M. and Y.Y.A. acknowledges funding support from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under award no. FA9550-19-1-0391. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. We thank S. Milojević, J. Yoon, S. Kojaku, B.-K. Lee, B. Weinberg, P. Stephan, S. Schnell, T. Zhou, J. Huang, J. Gao, Y. Bu, Q. Zhang, B. Uzzi, H. Youn and N. Dehmamy for helpful discussion and comments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Lili Miao, Dakota Murray & Yong-Yeol Ahn

  2. Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, Republic of Korea

    Woo-Sung Jung

  3. Department of Physics, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, Republic of Korea

    Woo-Sung Jung

  4. École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada

    Vincent Larivière

  5. Observatoire des sciences et des technologies, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada

    Vincent Larivière

  6. Department of Science and Innovation—National Research Foundation Centre of Excellence in Scientometrics and Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Vincent Larivière

  7. School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Cassidy R. Sugimoto

  8. Network Science Institute, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Yong-Yeol Ahn

  9. Connection Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Yong-Yeol Ahn

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Contributions

L.M. and D.M. conceived the study. All authors contributed to the design of the study. V.L. prepared the primary datasets. L.M., D.M., V.L. and Y.Y.A. performed analysis. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the results and writing of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yong-Yeol Ahn.

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Miao, L., Murray, D., Jung, WS. et al. The latent structure of global scientific development. Nat Hum Behav 6, 1206–1217 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01367-x

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