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Elsevier Releases Results of Alternative Energy Research Leadership Study Identifying Top 25 Institutions Worldwide

Posted on: Thursday, 25 June 2009, 09:14 CDT

AMSTERDAM, June 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --

- Over 1000 Members of the Research Community View Webcast to Learn About Findings and New Performance Measurement Method

Elsevier, a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced results of its SciVal Spotlight Alternative Energy Research Leadership study. Analyzing the work of 3,000 research institutions from across the globe, the study identifies the top 25, using a new method for determining leadership.

Highlights of the findings were shared in a recent webcast, "Research Leadership Redefined... Measuring Performance in a Multidisciplinary Landscape." Over 1000 academic and government executives, researchers and librarians joined live or viewed the recorded version to learn more about the methodology behind the study which illustrates a new way to identify research leaders based on output in "distinctive competencies".

Distinctive competencies (DCs) represent expertise in specific research areas. They reveal the degree to which institutions have constructed multidisciplinary networks within their organization focused on achieving specific breakthroughs. Indicating that research within the university is not being done in isolated silos, examining output in distinctive competencies offers a more accurate way of determining leadership in a given area than traditional measurement methods.

Following are the top ranked institutions in the study based on the number of alternative energy research papers produced in distinctive competencies (DCs): Institution Country Total Papers in DCs NASA Goddard Space Flight Center United States 309 National Renewable Energy Laboratory United States 271 Helmholtz Centre Berlin for Materials and Energy Germany 240 Forschungszentrum Julich Germany 234 Pennsylvania State University United States 168 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration United States 121 University of California at Irvine United States 101 Osaka University Japan 97 California Institute of Technology United States 97 Harvard University United States 84 Tsinghua University China 83 Shanghai Jiaotong University China 81 University of Colorado United States 80 Imperial College London Great Britain 79 Tohoku University Japan 71 Eindhoven University of Technology Netherlands 69 National Research Council of Canada Canada 66 Nanyang Technological University Singapore 64 National Cheng Kung University Taiwan 61 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign United States 61 Korea Institute of Science and Technology Korea 54 University of Science and Technology of China China 54 Massachusetts Institute of Technology United States 53 Los Alamos National Laboratory United States 52 Kyoto University Japan 52

"As research becomes more multidisciplinary in nature, it is increasingly difficult to find actionable information with respect to output," said Jay Katzen, Managing Director Academic & Government Products at Elsevier and one of the webcast presenters. "In today's uncertain economic times, it is even more critical that academic executives get the right insight to make strategic decisions on everything from funding allocations to hiring."

"There is a common misperception that the most significant research is being conducted at only a handful of top-ranked universities," added Dick Klavans, Senior Development Advisor for Elsevier A&G and also a presenter at the webcast. "There is a need to look beyond total paper counts as leaders in specific sub-topics exist within all levels of the university rankings. Examining distinctive competencies shines a light on overlooked output and unrecognized leaders."

Based on the top 50 institutions globally, the study also analyzes country output in the three main alternative energy sub-topics or topic groups including solar/photovoltaic, fuel cells and environmentally-related areas (such as efficiency, renewable energy, biomass, wind, etc.).

Following is a country-specific breakdown of each topic group by total published papers, total papers in DCs and the percent of papers in DCs. Total papers indicate the breadth of research conducted by an institution whereas the percent of papers in DCs demonstrates the depth of research.

Solar/Photovoltaic Research* Country Total Papers Papers in DCs % in DCs United States 893 454 51% Japan 455 149 33% Germany 370 335 91% China 246 58 24% Taiwan 135 61 46% Great Britain 117 53 46% Netherlands 79 44 56% So. Korea 76 0% Italy 68 21 31% Switzerland 53 46 85% Singapore 38 32 85% Canada 20 0% Hong Kong 13 0% Fuel Cell Research* Country Total Papers Papers in DCs % in DCs United States 1006 377 38% China 574 157 27% Japan 531 94 18% So. Korea 296 76 26% Canada 220 66 30% Germany 145 110 76% Great Britain 95 25 27% Netherlands 88 25 29% Taiwan 86 0% Singapore 76 31 41% Italy 57 0% Switzerland 49 0% Hong Kong 18 0% Environmentally-Related Energy Research* Country Total Papers Papers in DCs % in DCs United States 1997 797 40% China 425 75 18% Japan 216 0% So. Korea 164 0% Canada 130 0% Hong Kong 94 25 27% Switzerland 84 0% Taiwan 72 0% Netherlands 69 0% Singapore 45 0% Italy 44 0% Great Britain 44 0% Germany 23 23 100.0%

* Please note that when a country has 0% of its papers in DCs it does not indicate they are not publishing papers in the area but that they are being developed as isolated pieces rather than part of a larger effort.

"Although the United States is the most prolific across all of the topic groups, Germany is a formidable competitor in solar/photovoltaic," explained Kevin Boyack, Senior Development Advisor for Elsevier A&G, study analyst and webcast presenter. "Not only is Germany not far behind in terms of the number of papers in this topic group, it is ahead of the United States when it comes to the percentage of papers in distinctive competencies. What this indicates is that there is significant depth to the work being conducted in solar/photovoltaic in Germany and that the country has built a meaningful network focused on achieving breakthroughs in this area."

For more information on the study or a copy of the findings report, which will be available in August, please contact Amanda Sham. To access the recorded version of the "Research Leadership Redefined... Measuring Performance in a Multidisciplinary Landscape" webcast please log on to: http://www.scival.com/webcast.

SciVal Spotlight Alternative Energy Research Leadership Study Methodology

The study analyzes the alternative energy work of 3,000 research institutions (primary universities) using SciVal Spotlight, Elsevier's new research performance measurement tool which will be released later this summer. Moving beyond the traditional method of measuring research output by journal count, the SciVal Spotlight tool is built on a more detailed model of the current structure of science. The model, covering almost all of the science being conducted across the globe, was developed using co-citation analysis of a comprehensive database including 5.6 million separate papers published between 2003 and 2007 and another 2 million of the heavily cited reference works within these papers.

About the Elsevier SciVal Suite

The SciVal suite of services delivers intelligence solutions to help the academic and government research communities evaluate, establish and execute their research strategies more effectively. The suite currently includes SciVal Spotlight and SciVal Funding.

With traditional research performance measurement options unable to capture the reality of today's multidisciplinary scientific landscape, the SciVal Spotlight tool is designed to provide research managers with a more accurate picture of any institution's unique research strengths and opportunities.

SciVal Funding is an online funding intelligence solution that enables researchers and research administrators to better compete for research funding. The tool provides access to over 5,000 funding sources and includes targeted recommendations based on pre-populated research profiles as well as an extensive history of awarded grants.

For more information on the SciVal Suite, please visit http://www.scival.com.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. Working in partnership with the global science and health communities, Elsevier's 7,000 employees in over 70 offices worldwide publish more than 2,000 journals and 1,900 new books per year, in addition to offering a suite of innovative electronic products, such as ScienceDirect (http://www.sciencedirect.com/), MD Consult ( http://www.mdconsult.com/), Scopus (http://www.info.scopus.com/), bibliographic databases, and online reference works.

Elsevier (http://www.elsevier.com/) is a global business headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and has offices worldwide. Elsevier is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc (http://www.reedelsevier.com/), a world-leading publisher and information provider. Operating in the science and medical, legal, education and business-to-business sectors, Reed Elsevier provides high-quality and flexible information solutions to users, with increasing emphasis on the Internet as a means of delivery. Reed Elsevier's ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

Name: Amanda Sham Jessica Disch Phone +1-212-752-8338 E-mail: asham@psbpr.com jdisch@psbpr.com

SOURCE Elsevier

Source: PR Newswire

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