Peripheral forces: The growing impact of second-tier cities is narrowing the gap in research production [Comment] Marion Maisonobe, Laurent Jégou, Guillaume Cabanac

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Marion Maisonobe, Laurent Jégou, Guillaume Cabanac. Peripheral forces: The growing impact of second-tier cities is narrowing the gap in research production [Comment]. Nature, Nature Publishing Group, 2018, 563 (7729), pp.18-19. ￿10.1038/d41586-018-07210-6￿. ￿hal-01955655￿

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Official URL DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07210-6

To cite this version: Maisonobe, Marion and Jégou, Laurent and Cabanac, Guillaume Peripheral forces: The growing impact of second-tier cities is narrowing the gap in research production [Comment]. (2018) Nature, 563 (7729). 18-19. ISSN 0028-0836

Any correspondence concerning this service should be sent to the repository administrator: [email protected] COMMENT Boston, MARION MAISONOBE, United States LAURENT JÉGOU, AND 4,272 New York, GUILLAUME CABANAC United States 3,619 San Francisco Bay Area, United States PERIPHERAL 3,181 Atlanta, United States FORCES 1,094 The growing impact of second-tier cities is narrowing the gap in research production.

TOP-CITED CITIES This map shows the top 100 cities based on their contribution to the top 10% of highly- cited publications in 2013 in the Web of Science database. Boston tops the ranking, publishing 4,272 highly-cited papers in 2013, followed by , New York, London and San Francisco. While many of the traditional science hotspots dominate, several newcomers are rising faster. Between 2000 and 2013, Tehran, Wuhan and each increased their production of highly-cited publications by more than 500%.

cientific production is undergoing a we used the three-year moving average of pub- Countries such as and Iran, which gradual process of democratization. Over lication count. have made significant investments in research Sthe past 50 years, a growing number of and development over the past decade, have cities and countries have joined the global MORE EVEN SPREAD seen swift growth in their share of the output. scientific community, and are making a signifi- Our analysis has revealed a gradual shift in China’s global share of highly-cited publica- cant impact. A more balanced distribution of the global research landscape. In 2000, 3,180 tions rose from 2% to 12% between 2000 and paper citations means greater equity between urban areas in 171 countries published at least 2013, making it the second most impactful researchers regardless of their location. one highly-cited publication. By 2013, the country after the United States. Iran, South These changes have not gone unnoticed in number of contributing urban areas had grown Korea and registered a one percent- traditional science hotspots, such as London, by 52% to 4,841, in 190 countries. age-point increase in their share. Paris and Tokyo, but those cities need not fear Within many countries, the production relinquishing their dominance in the foresee- share of secondary cities has grown faster than able future. The observed spatial dispersal of “A MORE BALANCED those at the top. For example, Beijing’s national knowledge production is driven by the emer- share of highly-cited publications decreased gence of new centres of higher education and DISTRIBUTION OF PAPER from 22% to 19% between 2000 and 2013 and innovation, not productivity losses at the top, Paris’s share declined from 40% to 37% during and the newcomers have much ground to CITATIONS MEANS that same period. Meanwhile, those of Wuhan catch up. and Guangzhou have increased by two per- We present an analysis based on 2.8 million centage points, and those of Marseille and scientific papers indexed in the Web of Science GREATER EQUITY BETWEEN Toulouse by more than 0.5. database between 1999 and 2014 that corre- spond to the top 10% of highly-cited research RESEARCHERS.” PEOPLE PULL by subject, publication year, and document An analysis of the entire publication record type (articles, reviews and letters). While most of the highly-cited research is reveals a more level playing field. In an ear- Affiliations are assigned to urban areas still concentrated in a few hotspots, it is more lier study, we assessed 19 million documents based on fractional counting, which accounts evenly spread than a decade ago. The top 10 indexed in the Web of Science database for the number of distinct urban areas that most impactful cities accounted for 21% of between 1999 and 2014, and found that while contributed to a paper. For each observation, global output in 2000, but only 17% in 2013. the top 10 publishing cities accounted for 17%

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Bars are sized by number of publications in the top 10% of highly-cited research in 2013 Beijing, China London, 4,022 CHANGE IN OUTPUT 2000–2013 (%) 3,281 <0 change in highly-cited papers 0–50 51–100 Paris, France

2,165 101–500 >500 SCIENCE OF AL./WEB ET MAISONOBE SOURCE: Nanjing, China , China 1,286 2,114

Tokyo, 1,702 Wuhan, China 1,050

Tehran, Iran 847 Tel-Aviv, 519 Barcelona, 997 Sydney, Australia INDEX SHARE 1,520 Beijing Beijing is the top-producing city in the index based on Shanghai its contribution to 82 high-quality research Nanjing journals, a metric known as fractional count (FC). Wuhan But its share of China’s output has given way over Guangzhou 2012 2017 the past six years to up-and-comers Nanjing, 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Wuhan and Guangzhou. Share of China’s output (%) Melbourne, Australia

SOURCE: NATURE INDEX NATURE SOURCE: 1,424

of the world production in 2000, they pro- in 2002 with an initial 18 billion yen (US$160 URBAN IMPACT duced only a 14% share in 2013. million), in 2005 committed 4.6 This graph shows the productivity spread among This shift has resulted in an expanding net- billion euros (US$5.38 billion) to the Excel- cities publishing articles in the top 10% of work of scientific collaborations between cit- lence Initiative to create elite universities, and highly-cited research. The top 30 cities published, on average, 48,700 highly-cited papers in 2013, ies, within and across countries and regions. France announced in 2010 the Investments representing a 40% increase from 2000. The The share of publications co-authored from at for the Future programme, of which 24 billion relative gains were much larger among the least two urban areas belonging to the same euros would go to higher education, training 501–1,000 ranked cities, which published an country has increased from 15.5% to 20%. and research. average 12,300 highly-cited papers in 2013, up Intra-national links have particularly increased These policies have strived to secure the 186% from 2000. within Latin America and Africa. position of traditional hotspots by concen- 50,000 These changes stem from the creation of trating research funding on their most visible 1 universities across all levels of the urban hier- institutions. By neglecting peripheral sites of CITY CATEGORIES: 1. Top 30 cities archy. Whereas in the past, the researcher scientific production, such policies could risk 2 2. 31–100 population was over-represented in a few reverting to a less diverse and more skewed 40,000 3. 101–250 4. 251–500 megacities, it now corresponds more closely landscape, which would be detrimental to 3 5. 501–1,000 with the world’s population distribution. science. 6. ≥1,001 Where there are bees, there will be honey. The performance of a city is tightly con- 30,000 nected to the performance of the cities it col- 4 Circle size denotes REACHING THE HEIGHTS absolute increase in the laborates with. It is these links, particularly number of highly-cited Changes to the global science landscape have at the national level, that make cities strong 20,000 publications 2000–2013. galvanized traditional science powerhouses. globally. ■ Facing the entrance of Beijing and Shanghai in 5 10,000 the top 10 most productive and cited cities — Marion Maisonobe is a geographer at 6 together with the rise of Chinese institutions in Université Paris-Est. 2013 publications highly-cited of Number the top university rankings — several countries Laurent Jégou is a geographer and cartographer have established new excellence policies. at Université Toulouse II - Jean Jaurès. 0 Among others, Japan established the 21st Guillaume Cabanac is a computer scientist at 0 100 200 300 400 500 Change in output 2000–2013 (%) Century Centers of Excellence programme Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier. SCIENCE OF AL./WEB ET MAISONOBE SOURCE:

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