SCIENCE IN THE EIGHTIES - A TYPOLOGY OF COUNTRIES BASED ON INTERFIELD PRIORITIES

This paper seeks to compare the research priorities of thirty three countries in five macrofields (Physics, Chemistry Biology, Mathematics and Engineering & Technology) in two time spans: 1980-1984 and 1985-1989. Comparative analysis is based on the distribution of publications in different fields. Since the raw counts of publications are confounded by the size of the countries and the size of the subject fields, a relative index - Research Priority Index (PI) - is computed for cross-national comparisons. Correspondence analysis is applied to the asymmetrical matrices of priority profiles to reveal the structure of multivariate relationships between countries and fields. The configurations for the two time-spans, obtained-through correspondence analysis, are compared to reveal the dynamics of research priorities of these countries.