"Nature" says Brazil is part of the new map of science

Brazil is in select group of nations conducting high-level research. FAPESP scientific director recommends measures for driving Brazilian research forward in an article from the same issue.

By Elton Alisson

Agência FAPESP – The journal Nature published a special edition on October 18 covering the ongoing changes in the way science is conducted in the contemporary world.

Entitled The New Map of Science, the publication highlights that today, nations like China, India, Singapore, Brazil and South Korea are taking a seat at the table with nations that conduct high-level research together with superpowers like France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, which have been dominating scientific research since 1945 but could lose this leadership in coming years.

According to the publication, one of the reasons for this change in the geography of science is that science is becoming increasingly globalized due to the worldwide growth of collaborative research networks that are reinforcing research competence and capacity in emerging nations and tilting the global scales of science.

“National boundaries are being transcended through collaboration networks and ‘brain circulation’, in which scientists move more fluidly around the world,” states the publication.

“This movement of people and ideas will change how science is done, how it is funded and the questions that it addresses,” predicts the magazine’s editorial.

To illustrate this new outlook, the journal cites National Science Foundation data indicating that nearly one-fourth of the scientific articles published in 2010 were authored by scientists from more than one nation, as compared to 10% in 1990. NSF data also said that the average number of authors involved in a study today (4.5) is double what it was in 1980.

“An issue of Nature today has the same number of scientific articles as the issues of 60 years ago, but they have at least four times as many authors,” states the publication.

Other examples that the publication used to illustrate increased international scientific cooperation were some of this year’s Nobel Prize winners.

For example, Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), is a professor at the University of Kyoto and works with the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco, where he coordinates rodent research.

Another example, France’s Serge Haroch, Nobel Prize in Physics laureate and professor of physics at the Collège de France, has been professor at MIT and Harvard and Yale Universities in the United States and collaborates with scientists from different nations, including Brazil.

“Many areas of science are becoming international, not local, pursuits; researchers are increasingly criss-crossing the globe and becoming accustomed to working in two or three countries at once,” said the journal.

Measures for driving science in Brazil

The special edition of Nature brought together the opinions of eight leaders at research institutions, programs and funding agencies in Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, Spain, Russia, Egypt, Brazil and South Korea on the measures that should be taken to drive science forward in their countries over the next decade.

FAPESP Scientific Director Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz was asked by the publication to speak about the outlook of science in Brazil. In his article, published in the “Comment” section of the special edition, Brito Cruz emphasized that scientific development in Brazil has been impressive over the last 30 years.

In 2011, for example, more than 12,000 doctoral degrees were awarded, and 35,000 articles were published in international scientific journals. On average, however, citations of scientific articles written by researchers that same year were the same as they were in 1994, less than 65% of the world average.

“Brazilian scientists should collaborate and publish more with researchers from world class institutions overseas,” recommended Brito Cruz.

One of his proposals is that the federal government should develop a plan to fund the creation of excellence programs at ten universities that would place them among the world’s top 100 in a decade.

“Brazil already has highly selective universities that could become world-class,” Brito Cruz points out.

The New Map of Science special edition of Nature can be accessed at: www.nature.com/news/specials/global/index.html