Innovation UK > News > Innovation News > UK research tops G8 league

The UK also continues to rank as second only in the world to the US on leading scientific indicators. These include clinical sciences, health sciences, biological sciences, environmental, and social sciences.

The International Benchmarking Study of UK Research Performance 2009, published by Evidence Ltd and commissioned by BIS, also revealed that, crucially during the current economic climate, the UK offers some of the best value for money. It ranks first among the G8 nations on the number of citations in relation to public R&D spend.

The Minister for Science and Innovation, Lord Drayson, welcomed the report, which he said reflected the UK?s unwavering focus on quality rather than quantity. "Once again, we have outperformed other nations in the G8 and secured our position as second in the world in scientific productivity,? he said.

?Supporting the science community and maintaining our excellent research base is critical to the UK?s future economic growth and prosperity. This is why the government will invest a record level of almost £6bn in UK science and research by 2011."

The study also revealed a rise in the number of UK papers co-authored with researchers in other countries. These co-authored papers tend to be highly cited ? international collaborations with the US, Germany and France have a 50% higher impact than the UK research base average.

Other key findings from the analysis of papers and citations in 8000 of the world?s leading scientific journals reveal that the UK:

• share of citations in science journals across the world is 12%, second only to the US.
• increased its share of the most cited (or top 1%) of world papers from 13.4% last year to 14.4%.
• produced 8% of the world?s scientific papers, third only to the US and China

The annual benchmark provided by the study is used to assess the UK?s performance alongside the 25 world leading research economies ? including the G8 nations, India and China.