The Chief Scientist Tells It Like It Is, But Who Can Be Bothered Listening. (February 17, 2013)

Australia's Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, late last week released the sixth of his office's Occasional Papers ‒ Benchmarking Australian Science Performance.

In introducing the paper Professor Chubb said: "It has often been said that we punch above our weight. While that may be true, it appears that our aspiration needs to be higher. In terms of citation per paper, we do not out-perform the countries with an embedded scientific culture that we might aspire to be like – the Western European democracies, Scandinavia or the United States and Canada. We should compare ourselves with the best in the world. We should not compare ourselves with the rest of the world."

To support his contention the Office of the Chief Scientist not only has made available the occasional paper but also the fields and sub-fields in Figures 3 and 4)  is available here, while supplement 2 (global comparison of citation rates) is available here.

Europe: Austria (AUT), Belgium (BEL), Denmark (DNK), France (FRA), Finland (FIN), Germany (DEU), Ireland (IRL), Norway (NOR), Sweden (SWE), Switzerland (CHE), United Kingdom (GBR).

Americas: Canada (CAN), United States (USA)

Asia: China (CHN), India (IND), Indonesia (IDN), Japan (JPN), Malaysia (MYS), Philippines (PHL), South Korea (KOR), Singapore (SGP), Thailand (THA), Viet Nam (VNM).

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