SCANDINAVIA: Danish scientists lead Nordic peers

Danish universities and university hospitals lead their Nordic counterparts in international ranking, publishing patterns, research profiles and citation impact in natural sciences, medical and technological research, according to a new report.

The research was published by NORDFORSK, a platform for joint Nordic research and research policy development coordinating activities between Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Iceland. The network on bibliometrics facilitates cross-country comparisons of research performance using a bibliometric approach.

With 16 highly qualified experts from university libraries, national research councils, university hospitals and institutions doing research policy analysis, this may be one of the strongest networks on research performance in the world.

The report, Comparing Research at Nordic Universities using Bibliometric Methods, compares production measures at 40 Nordic universities and 23 university hospitals. Using the Thomson Reuters Science Citation Index and Web of Science, research data in 11,500 scientific peer reviewed journals from 2000 to 2009 was analysed.

Nordic researchers published 105,699 papers from 2000-04 and 116,575 papers from 2005-09, accounting for 2.32% of world production in the natural sciences, engineering and technology, medical and health sciences and agricultural sciences. The R&D spending in these fields in the five Nordic countries increased from EUR3 billion (US$4.2 billion) in 2000 to EUR5 billion (US$7 billion) in 2009.

In Denmark, researchers are cited 27% more frequently than the world average, compared with 13% in Sweden, 11% in Iceland, 8% in Norway, and 5% in Finland. Norwegian researchers had the highest relative citation growth for the period 2000-08.

Aarhus University, Copenhagen University and Denmark Technological University all have frequency of citations 40% higher than the world average, and these figures are consistent for each year in the period 2000-2008. In Finland, Helsinki University and University Hospital are significantly more cited than the other institutions and hence contribute to a higher national average.

It is consistent with the finding of other universities that size matters and that larger Nordic institutions have significantly higher citation rates.

Fredrik Piro, project leader at NIFU STEP, said the research team had not focused on rankings in this report but worked out institutional research profiles.

A chapter in the report suggests that the 2008, Leiden University ranking used the most similar methodology, drawing as it does on the same data in the Web of Science. Comparing five university rankings across the 40 Nordic universities, it concludes there are still differences from the Leiden ranking. This also demonstrates the wide variations across the five rankings among the 40 institutions.

Ole Petter Ottersen, Rector of the University of Oslo, said these were "no-nonsense numbers", hinting at comparison with the Fagerberg report published last month, which produced headlines of "Nonsense number crunching in research" in the Norwegian press. Meantime, Kåre Bremer, Rector of Stockholm University, said the report was extremely interesting and valuable for institutions in their strategic planning.

Humanities and social sciences could not be included because of the lack of bibliometric registrations for these fields.