Developing an Index of National Research Capacity

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Wagner, Caroline S., Whetsell, Travis A.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2023
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author Wagner, Caroline S.
Whetsell, Travis A.
author_facet Wagner, Caroline S.
Whetsell, Travis A.
contents Public managers lack feedback on the effectiveness of public investments, policies, and programs instituted to build and use research capacity. Numerous reports rank countries on global performance on innovation and competitiveness, but the highly globalized data does not distinguish country contributions from global ones. We suggest improving upon global reports by removing globalized measures and combining a reliable set of national indicators into an index. We factor analyze 14 variables for 172 countries from 2013 to 2021. Two factors emerge, one for raw or core research capacity and the other indicating the wider context of governance. Analysis shows convergent validity within the two factors and divergent validity between them. Nations rank differently between capacity, governance context, and the product of the two. Ranks also vary as a function of the chosen aggregation method. Finally, as a test of the predictive validity of the capacity index, a regression analysis was implemented predicting national citation strength. Policymakers and analysts may find stronger feedback from this approach to quantifying national research strength.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2306_03981
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Developing an Index of National Research Capacity
Wagner, Caroline S.
Whetsell, Travis A.
Other Statistics
Applications
Public managers lack feedback on the effectiveness of public investments, policies, and programs instituted to build and use research capacity. Numerous reports rank countries on global performance on innovation and competitiveness, but the highly globalized data does not distinguish country contributions from global ones. We suggest improving upon global reports by removing globalized measures and combining a reliable set of national indicators into an index. We factor analyze 14 variables for 172 countries from 2013 to 2021. Two factors emerge, one for raw or core research capacity and the other indicating the wider context of governance. Analysis shows convergent validity within the two factors and divergent validity between them. Nations rank differently between capacity, governance context, and the product of the two. Ranks also vary as a function of the chosen aggregation method. Finally, as a test of the predictive validity of the capacity index, a regression analysis was implemented predicting national citation strength. Policymakers and analysts may find stronger feedback from this approach to quantifying national research strength.
title Developing an Index of National Research Capacity
topic Other Statistics
Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.03981