UK science ‘smashed‘ by US and China in priority areas

Extract top 100 cited papers from database with in vogue buzzwords "artificial intelligence" / "synthetic biology" / "quantum computing". Extract nationality of PI. (Optional - randomly exclude Deepmind papers for no apparent reason) Couple of divisions on the calculator. = “It’s time to ditch the idea that we have some national genius for science that will carry us through into the future" Damn - if only we had more geniuses like Nightingale and Phillips working in UK Science maybe we'd be doing better - I guess they're just too busy doing these complex analyses.

Compared to the number of institutions in the US and China the UK's got an uphill struggle, though in some areas we are world leading, hence the number of US DARPA research contracts awarded to UK research dept's. Though just how many papers from Chinese universities are actually their work, not stolen from others, is a question too few are prepared to ask.

The world of research is fascinating but one thing is for certain. On the final page of the document will be a statement to the effect that ".........more research is required ..." When it comes to what to research and for how long and at what cost the debate gets more heated. Allocating public funds for research based on the number of citations a paper receives , seems crazy to me. Weighing a cow does not make it heavier. Surely it makes more sense to measure the outcomes and outputs of research - who has delivered what and for how much. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the benefits of past research should be at the heart of allocating future public funding. The way the Government recently decided that more research was being done than they thought, by looking at the amount of money claimed under the Research and Development Tax Credits initiative, and then declaring that their target of 2.5 % of GDP to be spent on research had been reached and there was no need to budget for further funds was laughable. Until we can explain why, and better understand, how 50 % of the money we spend on research is wasted / fails to deliver measurable results, we are doomed to go on wasting more.