National patterns of research output and priorities in renewable energy
Introduction
The publication pattern of a country is tantamount to a signature (Ojasso et al., 1994). It is an indicator of its capacity and commitment to perform mainstream research in certain specific areas. The research output in different areas/subjects of science in a country is not a random event. It is the cumulative effect of resources allocation and policy decisions in the past for different areas/sub-areas of science, whether explicitly or implicitly. If there are more publications in a particular area compared to another, it means more resources and more facilities in that particular area compared to the other. Thus the publication profile of a country can be visualized as an indicator of its research priorities (Uzun, 1998). Tracking the imbalances in the structure of research priorities is of fundamental concern to science/research policy. Policy makers are frequently confronted with such questions: What priorities are being given to different areas/sub-areas of science? How do they compare with those of other countries? What are the areas that are receiving low priority in the country, but are accorded high priority elsewhere and vice versa?
The main objective of this paper is to identify priorities and potential holes in the research agenda of major countries in the field of renewable energy, using a bibliometric indicator. This indicator, based on the distribution of publications in different subjects, is concerned with the structure rather than the size of the research area in countries of different sizes.
In the national context, an earlier study (Van de Ven and Feary, 1984) has suggested that in order to understand the policy process, it is essential to take a dynamic view of the underlying variables rather than a static snapshot. The same is true in the case of research policy too. Therefore, a collateral objective would be to track the priorities over long periods, e.g., at least four or five years.
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Data and methodology
The data on publication output of 25 major countries in nine subjects (see Appendix A, and 2 for the names of the countries, and the details of the nine subjects respectively) of renewable energy were compiled from the CD-ROM versions of the Science Citation Index (SCI), and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) databases for two time-spans: indexing years: 1996–1997 and 1998–1999. The period of two years is considered as minimum essential to smoothen, as far as possible, the year-to-year
General overview of the data
The output and world share of publications in different subjects for two time-spans: 1996–1997 and 1998–1999 are given in Table 1. The largest topic-PV-alone accounts for more than 65% of the total output in each time-span (68.2% in 1996–1997 and 65.9% in 1998–1999).
The world share of low energy architecture (LEA), Wind Energy Generation, and Geothermal applications increased significantly in the intervening period between 1996–1997 and 1998–1999. These topics registered above-average growth
Conclusion
A comparative analysis of the research priorities, particularly the identification of areas that need to be emphasized or de-emphasized, has important implications for strategic planning in science, especially the allocation of resources to different areas and identification of research areas and countries for transnational cooperation in research. Tracking of trends and priorities in time can provide important insights into the impact of resource allocation decisions taken in the past.
The
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2012, Energy for Sustainable DevelopmentCitation Excerpt :There have been only a few bibliometric studies on this area, however, and there is a clear need for an overview of the research (Dalpe, 2002; Garfield, 1992; Strehl and Dos Santos, 2002). In this sense, Thomas (1992) evaluates the work of research groups in the field of biomass, considering areas outside the U.S. and the E.E.C. Uzun (2002) compares the research results and priorities of 25 countries in renewable energy for the periods 1996–97 and 1998–99, using as measures the numbers of publications and their increase, and a research priority index. Hassan (2005), recognizing the part played by science and technology in the development of fuel cells, characterizes the evolution of the structure of these cells in the 1990s using patent and scientific publication data as basis.