Nature Index Supplement: A Systematic Review of Article Contributions and International Collaborations in Physical Science and Information Technology for South Korea and Other Regions, Regions and States
A description of the terminology and methodology used in this supplement, and a guide to the functionality that is available free online at natureindex.com.
To glean a country’s, territory’s, region’s or an institution’s contribution to an article, and to ensure that they are not counted more than once, the Nature Index uses Share, a fractional count that takes into account the share of authorship on each article. Under the assumption that each author contributed equally the total Share available is 1, which is shared among them. If an article has 10 authors, then each author gets a share of 0.1. The author’s Share is divided evenly between the institutions that they are affiliated with. The Share for each individual author is calculated by summing them up. The process is similar for countries/territories, although complicated by the fact that some institutions have overseas labs that will be counted towards host country/territory totals.
There’s a small yearly variation in the number of articles in the Nature Index journals. It is arrived at by calculating the percentage difference in the total number of articles in the Index in a given year relative to the number of articles in a base year and adjusting Share values to the base year levels.
The sum of the two institutions’ shares on the same paper is used to calculate the bilateral collaboration score. A bilateral collaboration can be between any two institutions or countries/territories co-authoring at least one article in the journals tracked by the Nature Index.
The profile page can be found on the left side of each query and can be used to get more information. Articles can be displayed by journal, and then by article. Research outputs are organized by subject area. The pages list the institution or country’s/territory’s top collaborators, as well as its relationship with other organizations. Users can track an institution’s performance over time, create their own indexes and export table data.
The tables in this supplement show the leading South Korean institutions based on their article Share (Share) in different subjects in 2023 and the top rising institutions based on their change in adjusted Share from 2022 to 2023.
A breakdown of subject contributions to countries’ overall 2023 output in journals tracked by the Nature Index is shown for South Korea and some of its closest competitors. The physical sciences make up almost 45% of South Korea’s output, making it a member of the group that contains India, which contributes half of its output. France and Switzerland, by comparison, have a more balanced output.
The four natural-science subjects and the natural sciences overall are shown in the table. The Pohang University of Science and Technology was greater in the physical sciences than it was in the natural sciences, according to the adjusted Share.