U.S. science and engineering article output increased at an average annual rate of 1.3% between 2000 and 2005, after remaining flat between 1995 and 2000.
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Why is this indicator important?
Publication of research results in the form of articles in peer-reviewed journals indicates contribution to the knowledge bases of nearly all scientiﬁc ﬁelds and disciplines.
In recent years, international use of this and related indicators has become widespread, as countries seek to assess their relative research output.
Between 1995 and 2005, world S&E article output grew at an average annual rate of 2.3%, reaching 710,000 articles in 2005.
U.S. authors produced 205,000 articles in 2005, accounting for 29% of the world total.
The United States was followed by Japan with 8% and the United Kingdom, Germany, and China with 6% each.
Chinese publications increased at an average annual rate of 16% between 1995 and 2005, surpassing France in 2003 and nearly equaling Germany and the United Kingdom in 2005.
Despite growing at an average annual rate of 4.5% between 1995 and 2005, India accounted for a small fraction of the world's total output and lost rank in the ﬁelds of engineering, mathematics, and medical sciences (SEI 2008
Between 1995 and 2005, the United States experienced gains on the index of highly cited articles (the share of the top 1% most frequently cited articles normalized by the share of all articles produced in the citation period) in all ﬁelds except chemistry and geosciences (SEI 2008
Appendix Table 5-39).