Designing Science Indicators

that relate to Output

and have Impact

Scott Tiffin

Director, Research & International Affairs

School of Business, Universidad Adolfo Ibanez, Santiago, Chile

scott.tiffin@uai.cl

Problems with Science Indicators in Latin America

• General public and industry are not interested in this topic, so there is very limited and erratic support to creating and diffusing them.

• Until this changes, there will be very few consistent, complete, accurate, detailed and useful data and indicators in the region.

• There are only limited signs of this changing

Solution

• Design simple science indicators focussing explicitly on outputs of competitive interest to political and commercial stakeholders

1. Measure Cities

• Research, innovation and knowledge-based employment occur almost exclusively in cities, and the the clusters based in cities

• Cities in LA are starting to compete against each other

• It is possible that some cities can be attracted to this area as a new vision more fully than states

Cities, Ranking and Business are Big News

2. Use ISI and US Patents

• Standardized data exist for all cities of the region over many years, measuring high quality scientific and technological activities in all domains, at the city level

• Recently measured 50 cities over 17 years, using Web resources, for as an introductory exercise, for possible publication in Scientometrics,

Where Research is Found

> 1,000/year> 100/year and < 1,000/year< 100/year

# ISI publications

Where Innovation is Found> 100> 25 and < 100< 25

Total # US patents 1986-2002

Trends of Research in Leading Cities

Graph 3 - Largest Producers

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

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6000

1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Period 1986 - 2002

An

nu

al #

of

Pu

blic

atio

ns

Buenos Aires Santiago Rio de Janeiro Sao Paulo Mex icoCity Campinas

Innovation LeadersGraph 11 - Leading Patent Cities

0

50

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150

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1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Period 1986 - 2002

# o

f P

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ts

Mex icoCity Monterrey Sao Paulo Rio de Janeiro

Buenos Aires Santiago Caracas

Small Innovation Performers

Graph 15 - Central America

0

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10

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25

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35

40

45

1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Period 1986 - 2002

# o

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San Jose San Salv ador Tegucigalpa Managua

Guatamela Panama City

Correlations and Testing Florida’s Hypothesis

Graph 18 - Correlations between Total Publications and Total Patents

Campinas

Santiago

Monterrey

Rio de Janerio

Caracas

Buenos Aires

Sao Paulo

Mexico City

Porto Alegre

Bogota

Leon

La Plata

R2 = 0.6701

0

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Total Patents

Tota

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High-tech clustering is more likely in cities with diversity, tolerance and creative arts. Key proxy measures are concentration of artists and homosexuals

R2 hard science only = .679R2 all research = .670

Removing major outliers increases R2

& puts results slightly in favour of Florida

3. Create Rankings

• Ranking indices create regional marketplace and stimulate competition

• All ranking schemes are seriously flawed approximations, but the data behind them can be strong and support serious analysis

• Institutions invest significant free time to input their data to well known ranking systems and even compete to pay for entry into them

Cha

nge

in R

egio

nal

Res

earc

h M

arke

t Sha

re

-6 -4 -2 0 2 4

São PauloCampinas

São CarlosPorto AlegreMexicoCity

Rio de JaneiroBelo Horizonte

CuritibaCuernavaca

ViçosaSão Jose dos Campos

FlorianopolisPuebla

MontevideoFortaleza

BrasiliaHavanaBogota

LeonGuadalajara

MedellínSalvador

QuitoMaracaibo

TolucaTemuco

MonterreyLa Paz

CaliMaracay

GuayaquilAsuncion

San SalvadorCochabambaTegucigalpa

ManaguaSan Juan

Panama CityConcepcion

Santo DomingoValparaiso

Guatemala CitySan JoseLa Plata

MendozaLima

CordobaCaracasSantiago

Buenos Aires

City Rank

Performance Score (sum

of sub scores)

Regional Concentration

of Publications

Regional Concentration of Patents x 3

Publication Intensity x

500

Patent Intensity x

200,000Caracas 1 46.01 7.14 21.45 1.58 22.98Buenos Aires 2 36.58 25.01 27.63 1.41 7.54Sao Paulo 3 36.49 33.78 28.56 1.55 6.38Sao Carlos 4 34.34 4.82 0.84 18.28 15.22Viçosa 5 32.78 1.23 0.33 14.41 18.04Toluca 6 29.13 0.21 1.08 0.35 27.7Leon 7 22.91 1.5 5.73 0.88 16.3Campinas 8 22.68 9.97 4.08 6.24 12.36Monterrey 9 19.97 0.97 9.6 0.21 10.16Rio de Janeiro 10 19.89 16.02 14.64 0.97 4.28Santiago 11 14.98 16.08 8.07 2.01 4.9Cuernavaca 12 13.47 2.46 3.45 3.2 6.82México City 13 13.16 28.56 10.44 0.98 1.74Porto Alegre 14 12.26 5.53 4.71 1.47 6.08Sao Jose dos Campos 15 10.35 0.86 1.2 1.17 7.98San Jose 16 10.26 1.88 2.49 1.05 6.72Bogota 17 9.67 2.32 6.18 0.25 3.24La Plata 18 8.84 6.51 0.57 5.79 2.48Montevideo 19 7.66 2.61 2.1 1.12 4.42Mendoza 20 7.11 0.92 1.35 0.72 5.04Havana 21 6.2 4.61 2.1 1.28 2.82Cordoba 22 6.12 4.48 1.14 2.22 2.76Puebla 23 5.53 2.27 1.71 0.82 3Guadalajara 24 5.49 1.32 2.67 0.26 2.56Curitiba 25 5.19 2.07 1.77 0.66 2.76Panama City 26 4.86 0.62 0.84 0.54 3.48Lima 27 4.77 2.14 3.12 0.21 1.44Belo Horizonte 28 4.44 3.87 1.86 0.78 1.8Guatemala 29 4.35 0.82 1.35 0.34 2.66San Juan 30 4.07 2.04 0.84 1.09 2.14Maracaibo 31 4.03 0.98 1.14 0.43 2.46Quito 32 3.66 0.87 1.02 0.4 2.24Florianopolis 33 3.28 2.02 0.06 2.8 0.42Concepcion 34 2.81 2.22 0.24 1.65 0.92Cochabamba 35 2.58 0.1 0.39 0.11 2.08Brasilia 36 2.41 2.77 0.45 1.1 0.86Salvador 37 2.36 1.54 0.84 0.42 1.1Cali 38 2.27 1.56 0.69 0.5 1.08Valparaiso 39 2.17 1.23 0.24 0.97 0.96Temuco 40 2.01 0.48 0.06 1.19 0.76Guayaquil 41 1.97 0.2 0.75 0.06 1.16Maracay 42 1.87 0.34 0.33 0.28 1.26Medellin 43 1.64 0.91 0.63 0.23 0.78Santo Domingo 44 1.61 0.25 0.63 0.08 0.9Asuncion 45 1.6 0.23 0.33 0.17 1.1La Paz 46 1.41 0.54 0.33 0.28 0.8San Salvador 47 1.02 0.1 0.24 0.06 0.72Fortaleza 48 0.85 1.41 0.18 0.41 0.26Managua 49 0.63 0.2 0.12 0.13 0.38Tegucigalpa 50 0.37 0.16 0.06 0.11 0.2

Com

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4. Measure Entrepreneurship

• Stakeholders are only interested in output measures that relate to jobs, enterprise creation and competitive advantage

• Entrepreneurship is a hot topic across LA

Growth of Incubators (Brazil)

Babson’s Global Entrepreneurship

Monitor• Started in 1999

• Annual

• Has grown to 41 countries

• Self-financing

• Entry cost is about 35$K US

• Results are headline news in major national newsmedia and commented on by presidential offices

The Task Ahead

• There is no urban data source for entrepreneurship comparable to ISI and US Patents

• I am promoting a proposal to build an Observatory for Urban Innovation and Entrepreneurship to generate and diffuse such information, and to gather research funding