By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
Korea ranked 12th in the number of papers published in a global reference index among 180 countries in 2007, one notch up from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. A total of 25,494 Korean papers were posted on the Science Citation Index (SCI) of the National Science Indicator database. The SCI, a citation index owned by Thomson Reuters, covers the world’s leading journals of science and technology.
South Korea's ranking in frequency of citation, however, fell by two notches to 30th place, the ministry said. Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands had less SCI references than Korea, however, their theses were cited more frequently in other papers.
``It means the quality of growth in universities remains slow despite quantitative development. We will focus on supporting universities to produce higher quality papers,’’ a ministry official said.
The United States topped the ranking with 293,371 papers, followed by the U.K, China, Germany, Japan and France. Korean scientists published a total of 25,494 theses on SCI last year, compared with 23,297 a year earlier. Korea took up 2.17 percent of all SCI papers, a two-fold growth from a decade ago.
The country showed marked achievements in the fields of computer science, physics, engineering and material sciences. Among Korean universities, Seoul National University published the largest number of SCI papers with 4,291. Among global universities, it claimed 24th post, up 8 notches from a year earlier. Yonsei University claimed 96th ranking, followed by Korea University at 137th.
In terms of growth rate, Ulsan University posted the highest increase of 36 percent, followed by Chung-Ang University, Chungbuk National University and Pusan National University. Overall, Harvard University ranked No.1 with 10,258 and University of Tokyo came next with 7,308.