2 the state of science in south africa
M A T H E M A T I C A L S C I E N C E S
have shown sustained increases over the ties of a real commitment to elevating the
period, while mathematical statistics has status of the research field as evidenced by,
remained more or less stable. The interna- for instance, the increase in the number of
tional journals of greatest choice among researchers obtaining NRF ratings. The chal-
South African authors include the Journal lenge would be to reinforce these trends
of Mathematical Analysis and Applications, and to increase the number of ratings of
Ars Combinatoria and Applied Mathematics black and female mathematicians who re-
and Computation. main significantly under-represented.
Not only is the journal article output of A worrying statistic is that which shows that
the mathematical sciences pool on a sig- researchers in mathematical sciences aged
nificant upward curve, but the annual mean between 40 and 49 produced an average
rate of articles per author (1.29) over the pe- of almost 40% of the peer-reviewed jour-
riod between 2002 and 2006 is more than nal article output between 2003 and 2006.
respectable by comparison with the high- Researchers less than 40 years old were
est international benchmarks. Of course, responsible for only about 10% of journal
this annual mean rate of articles per author outputs. Another cause for concern is that
only applies to the research-active cohort of over 80% of the article output is produced
mathematical scientists and there remain a by white mathematical scientists, with black
large number of qualified, or partially quali- researchers producing approximately 10%.
fied, mathematical science professionals Female authors account for about 15% of
who produce no visible research output at article equivalents. Five universities (Pre-
all. It is interesting to note that mathemati- toria, KwaZulu-Natal, Witwatersrand, Cape
cal science researchers have a relatively Town and Stellenbosch) account for over
limited propensity for collaboration on 75% of all research journal article output in
jointly-authored papers. A recent Centre the mathematical sciences.
for Research on Science and Technology
(CREST) study showed that almost 70% Impact and quality of research
of ISI-indexed articles by researchers in Reinforcing the preceding favourable find-
the mathematical sciences were written by ing about the high mean productivity of
one or two authors, which contrasts with individual researchers in the mathematical
the more than 40% of the articles in phy- sciences is the important finding about
sics that were produced by four or more the high impact rate of journal articles.
authors. Almost a quarter of the foreign The citation impact rates of mathematical
authors of co-authored articles were from sciences have been rising since 2000 and
the United States. are currently significantly higher than the
world average.
Active researchers in mathematical scienc-
es are performing very well relative to their Citation impact analysis is based on the
counterparts in all comparator disciplinary number of references to a published paper
fields. There are also signs within universi- in ISI-indexed journals. The citation indi-
76
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