THOMSON HONOURS SOUTH KOREA'S LEADING SCIENTISTS
Seoul, Korea - 23 May 2007 — Korea has risen to the third most innovative nation according to new data revealed by Thomson Scientific today at its first South Korea Citation Laureate Award and Research Day Event which is held at Korea University.
Thomson Scientific, present in South Korea since July 2000, is highly regarded globally among government, corporate and academic organisations for the valuable competitive advantage its information workflow solutions such as Web of Knowledge and Derwent World Patent Indexing (DWPI) provides scientists in research and development (R&D).
The new data, which uses DWPI to track patents over a ten year period from 1997 to 2006, shows an increase, of 54% in general and 94% within the academic sector specifically, in the number of inventions from South Korea to 88,574 and 4,706 respectively. As expected, South Korea is extremely strong in the semiconductor and telecommunications arena. In fact the data reveals South Korea and Japan dominating the mobile telephone sector – with South Korea close to over-taking Japan in this field.
As well as monitoring innovation through patent indexing, Thomson’s data also tracks the influence of individual scientist’s work within a nation and on a global scale. Today, Thomson presented seven leading South Korean scientists with its Thomson Citation Laureate Award in recognition of their pioneering achievements and influential contribution to international research and development.
The prestigious Award, presented based on a quantitative selection process which identifies the number of citations that an academic research paper has, thus reflecting its impact and influence on the given subject and importance attributed to it by subsequent research.
Within the past year, the number of citations accredited to South Korean R&D has risen to a ranking of 2 nd in Asia by citations per paper, topping China and India, and behind only Japan.
Physics, Chemistry and Engineering top the R&D effort in South Korea as the leading fields in terms of numbers of papers in the last five years, while materials science is the strongest in terms of citation impact relative to the world.
This year’s Korean winners are Professor Ryong Ryoo, Department of Chemistry, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology; Professor Bong Rae Cho, Department of Chemistry, Korea University; Professor Hyoung Jun Choi, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Inha University; Professor Gynheung An, Department of Life Science, Pohang University of Science and Technology; Professor Jong-Moon Park, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology; Mr Kiwoon Choi, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology; and Professor V. Narry Kim, School of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University.
The Awards were presented by Thomson Scientific’s Mark Garlinghouse, Vice President of Thomson Scientific, Asia Pacific, with guest speaker Seok Sik Choi, President, Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF) addressing the 200 attendees during the afternoon ceremony held at Korea University.
Mark Garlinghouse, Vice President of Thomson Scientific, Asia Pacific said: “The work of South Korean scientists and researchers stands out among the large volume of scholarly information coming out of Asia Pacific as ‘high-impact,’ especially in the materials science, plant and animal science, and physics fields. With papers appearing in all 22 fields of the Essential Science Indicators country ranking, South Korea continues to be a leader in performing relevant scientific research contributing to the development of scientific, technological and pharmaceutical break-throughs.”
The Thomson Scientific Citation Laureate Awards are presented globally, with previous presentations held in Australia, Brazil, China, Denmark, India, Japan, Mexico, and most recently in Taiwan in November 2006. The Awards will be presented in Japan and China again later this year.
Thomson Scientific’s ISI Web of Knowledge has become the premier source of citation information on scientific and scholarly literature, utilized by universities, research and development organizations, and corporations in the pharmaceutical, healthcare and technology sectors." More than 3,550 institutions from 90 countries use ISI Web of Knowledge . ISI Web of Knowledge, a platform that includes resources such as Web of Science, Web Citation Index and Derwent Innovations Index, enables researchers and businesses to organize scholarly literature, trace and map relations between research papers and make informed decisions faster. Thomson Scientific’s information solutions assist professionals at every stage of research and development from discovery and analysis to product development and distribution.
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