Thank you Andrew. Exactly true, but that simply says that the task is harder; it does not make it undesirable. I simply am not interested in counting articles except as this helps in establishing the question I asked. Counting articles has been done many times by people with more money than I have and the estimates are still quite wide-spread, though satisfactory as engineering estimates. Similar problems arise win publications with the fake journals and the quality spectrum (exactly the same problem you referred to in relation to counting researchers).
 To tease out another category you did not mention I have coined the terms (1)   'producing researcher' to be a person who adds to the scholarly literature as an author or co-author at least once every three years, and (2)   'non-productive researcher' as a person who researches the scholarly literature but has no intention of adding to the corpus, such as a teacher (school to university-level), a science journalist, most undergraduate students, or a member of the general public. The words 'active' vs 'non-active' simply will not do.  I have been pointed to a UNESCO Report which is proving very useful. Iâll post something when I have more to write and a better estimate than 1M < N <10M.  Best wishes  Arthur Sale University of Tasmania, Australia  -----Original Message----- From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Odlyzko Sent: Wednesday, 4 January 2012 12:02 AM To: goal@eprints.org Subject: [GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?  Arthur,  There is far more difficulty in counting researchers than in counting articles. The problem is the inherent ambiguity in the term "researcher." Who qualifies? How do you tell the difference between research and development? What do you do about all the support staff (such as the technicians who run the often ultra-sophisticated equipment)? How do you count students (graduate and undergraduate) who get involved in researchy projects?  One can certainly do something, but one needs to define the terms one uses with some precision.  Andrew     "Arthur Sale" <a...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:  > Thank you Arif. I have read the article this afternoon (3 January) and will > download and look through your thesis asap. > > > > However I feel compelled to re-emphasize to the list that I am not looking > for an estimate of how many articles are published annually, or ever. The > first of those pieces of data is useful for estimating what I really want to > know: how many active researchers are employed in year y? Particularly 2011. > Of course, it will be useful to have article counts by discipline, however > rough, because publication practices differ widely between disciplines. A > publication in some disciplines is worth far less than in others, the number > of authors/article differs widely, and journal prestige varies at least as > much. > > > > There are many other confusing factors in estimates based on article > production rates which I touched on in my reply to Stevan Harnad, not least > of which is the frequency of publication of equally highly respected > researchers. Some publish rarely (say once every three years), others > produce multiple articles per year. There are distributions in all these > things which we should understand. If I mention just one, the huge disparity > between articles/title in ISI and non-ISI journals listed in your article > (111 vs 26, from Bjork et al) must give anyone cause to reflect! That's over > 4:1, too big to gloss over. > > > > I know of course that I cannot determine exactly the number of researchers > in the world, any more than anyone else can determine exactly how many > articles were written or published. As an engineer in a previous career, > absolute precision in these matters is not required, rather sufficient > confidence that we are in the right ballpark. Anyway, thank you very much > for your help and links, which I greatly appreciate. > > > > Arthur Sale > > University of Tasmania > > > > > > From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf > Of Arif Jinha > Sent: Tuesday, 3 January 2012 5:26 AM > To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) > Subject: [GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there? > > > > Arthur, > > > > You're not going to be able to determine the exact number of researchers in > the world and you will have to make good estimates. But there are direct > relationships between the number of researchers, the number of articles > published annually and the number of active peer-reviewed journals. Good > sources for methodology are my thesis > <http://arif.jinhabrothers.com/sites/arif.jinhabrothers.com/files/aj.pdf> - > http://arif.jinhabrothers.com/sites/arif.jinhabrothers.com/files/aj.pdf > (defended and submitted this fall) > > - Article 50 million - > <http://www.mendeley.com/research/article-50-million-estimate-number-scholar > ly-articles-existence-6/> > http://www.mendeley.com/research/article-50-million-estimate-number-scholarl > y-articles-existence-6/ > > Methods and data are based chiefly on: > > Bjork et al's studies on OA share growth 2006 to current > > Mabe and Amin, Tenopir and King - works 1990s to early 2000s > > Derek De Sallo Price - 1960s - the 'father of scientometrics. > > - you can get the number of article from Bjork's methods and data and mine. > > - you can get the number of researchers from UN data but there is ratio of > researchers to publishing researchers, and publishing researchers publish an > average of 1 article per year, so if you can determine good estimate for > that ratio you are on your way. You have good data on growth rates of > researchers, articles and journals, but growth rates have increased > dramatically since 2000 as demonstrated in my thesis. It got a bit complex > and I tried to sort it best I could in my thesis. > > > > all the best, > > > > Arif > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: Arthur Sale <mailto:a...@ozemail.com.au> > > To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' <mailto:goal@eprints.org> > > > Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2011 6:25 PM > > Subject: [GOAL] How many researchers are there? > > > > I am trying to get a rough estimate of the number of active researchers in > the world. Unfortunately all the estimates seem to be as rough as the famous > Drake equation for calculating the number of technological civilizations in > the universe: in other words all the factors are extremely fuzzy. I seek > your help. My interest is that this is the number of people who need to > adopt OA for us to have 100% OA. (Actually, we will approach that sooner, as > the average publication has more than one author and we need only one to > make it OA. > > > > To share some thinking, let me take Australia. In 2011 it had 35 > universities and 29,226 academic staff with a PhD. Let me assume that this > is the number of research active staff. The average per institution is 835, > and this spans big universities down to small ones. Australia produces > according to the OECD 2.5% of the world's research, so let's estimate the > number of active researchers in the world (taking Australia as 'typical' of > researchers) as 29226 / 0.025 = 1,169,040 researchers in universities. Note > that I have not counted non-university research organizations (they'll make > a small difference) nor PhD students (there is usually a supervisor listed > in the author list of any publication they produce). > > > > Let's take another tack. I have read the number of 10,000 research > universities in the world bandied about. Let's regard 'research university' > as equal to 'PhD-granting university'. If each of them have 1,000 research > active staff on average, then that implies 10000 x 1000 = 10,000,000 > researchers. > > > > That narrows the estimate, rough as it is, to > >         1.1M < no of researchers < 10M > > I can live with this, as it is only one power of ten (order of magnitude) > between the two bounds. The upper limit is around 0.2% of the world's > population. > > > > Another tactic is to try to estimate the number of people whose name > appeared in an author list in the last decade. Disambiguation of names rears > its ugly head. This will also include many non-researchers in big labs, some > of them will be dead, and there will be new researchers who have just not > yet published, but I am looking for ball-park figures, not pinpoint > accuracy. I haven't done this work yet. > > > > Can we do better than these estimates, in the face of different national > styles? It is even difficult to get one number for PhD granting > universities in the US, and as for India and China @$#! > > > > Arthur Sale > > University of Tasmania, Australia > _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal [ Part 2: "Attached Text" ] _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
