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September 9, 2008

Best Research University Rankings - 2008

The annual ranking of research Universities are available from Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University. The methodology values publications and faculty awards which provides a better ranking of research (rather than teaching). Results from the 2008 rankings of Top 500 Universities worldwide, country representation of the top schools:

location Top 100 % of World
Population
% of World GDP % of top 500
USA 54     4.6%   27.2%  31.6%
United Kingdom 11  0.9  4.9 8.3
Germany   6  1.3  6.0 8.0
Japan   4  2.0  9.0 6.2
Canada   4  0.5  2.6 4.2
Sweden   4  0.1  0.8 2.2
France   3  0.8  4.6 4.6
Switzerland   3  0.1  0.8 1.6
Australia   3  0.3  1.6 3.0
Netherlands   2  0.2  1.4 2.4
Denmark   2  0.1  0.6 0.8
Finland   1  0.1  0.4 1.2
Norway   1  0.1  0.7 0.8
Israel   1  0.1  0.3 1.2
Russia   1  2.2  2.0 0.4
China  20.5  6.6 6.0
India  17.0  1.9 0.4

There is little change in most of the data from last year, which I think is a good sign, it wouldn’t make much sense to have radical shifts over a year in these rankings. Japan lost 2 schools in the top 100, France lost 1. Denmark (Aarhus University) and Australia (University of Sydney) gained 1. Last year there was a tie so there were 101 schools in the top 100.

The most dramatic data I noticed is China’s number of top 500 schools went from 14 to 30, which made me a bit skeptical of what caused that quick change. Looking more closely last year they reported the China top 500 totals as (China 14, China-Taiwan 6 and China-Hong Kong 5). That still gives them an impressive gain of 5 schools.

Singapore has 1 in the 102-151 range. Taiwan has 1 ranked in the 152-200 range, as do Mexico, Korea and Brazil. China has 9 in the 201-302 range (including 3 in Hong Kong). India has 2 in the 303-401 range.

University of Wisconsin - Madison is 17th again :-) My father taught there while I grew up.
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August 13, 2008

How Humans Got So Smart

Cooking and Cognition: How Humans Got So Smart

For a long time, we were pretty dumb. Humans did little but make “the same very boring stone tools for almost 2 million years,” he said. Then, only about 150,000 years ago, a different type of spurt happened — our big brains suddenly got smart. We started innovating. We tried different materials, such as bone, and invented many new tools, including needles for beadwork. Responding to, presumably, our first abstract thoughts, we started creating art and maybe even religion.

To understand what caused the cognitive spurt, Khaitovich and colleagues examined chemical brain processes known to have changed in the past 200,000 years. Comparing apes and humans, they found the most robust differences were for processes involved in energy metabolism.

The finding suggests that increased access to calories spurred our cognitive advances, said Khaitovich, carefully adding that definitive claims of causation are premature.

Nice example of scientific discovery in action. The direct link from cooking to brain development is far from proven but it is interesting. I also like “the same very boring stone tools for almost 2 million years” - maybe that is because I am too cynical (but while evolution is amazing - sometimes it is amazing how slow progress is).

Related: Brain Development Gene is Evolving the Fastest - Mapping Where Brains Store Similar Information - posts on science and out brains

June 6, 2008

Why did China’s Scientific Innovation Stop?

Why did China’s scientific innovation, once so advanced, suddenly collapse

By the time Joseph Needham died in 1995, he had published 17 volumes of his Science and Civilisation in China series, including several that he wrote entirely on his own.

The Chinese began printing 600 years before Johannes Gutenberg introduced the technique in Germany. They built the first chain drive 700 years before the Europeans. And they made use of a magnetic compass at least a century before the first reference to it appeared elsewhere. So why, in the middle of the 15th century, did this advanced civilisation suddenly cease its spectacular progress?

Needham never fully worked out why China’s inventiveness dried up. Other academics have made their own suggestions: the stultifying pursuit of bureaucratic rank in the Middle Kingdom and the absence of a mercantile class to foster competition and self-improvement; the sheer size of China compared with the smaller states of Europe whose fierce rivalries fostered technological competition; its totalitarianism.

Related: Science and Engineering in Politics - Economic Benefits from Engineering - Chinese Engineering Innovation Plan - Best Research University Rankings (2007)

June 2, 2008

International Engineering Education Data: USA, China, India

Several years ago we posted about the report on the USA Under-counting Engineering Graduates. The authors, and two others, have written a new report that provides some useful additions - Getting the Numbers Right: International Engineering Education in the United States, China, and India

Since the late 1990s, the United States had a modest increase in bachelor’s degree output, from just over 103,000 in 1998–99 to more than 137,000 in 2003–04 before declining slightly to about 129,000 in 2005–06, a growth of nearly 25 percent since 1998–99. India’s expansion at the bachelor’s level was more rapid, with four-year degree holders in engineering, CS, and IT more than tripling in the last seven years, from just over 68,000 in 1998–99 to nearly 220,000 in 2005–06. The fastest growth in bachelor’s degrees, however, appears to be occurring in China. According to the Chinese MoE, the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded has more than doubled in the last four years, from 252,000 in 2001–02 to 575,000 in 2005–06.

While engineering, CS, and IT degree production in the United States has been stable or increasing at all degree levels over the past ten years, a sizable percentage of these degrees are indeed being
awarded to foreign nationals. Statistics collected by the ASEE on bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees in engineering indicate that during the 2005–06 academic year, 7.2 percent, 39.8 percent and 61.7 percent of these degrees, respectively, were awarded to foreign nationals (Figure 4). As these figures indicate, the percentage of foreign nationals is significantly higher at the graduate level, especially for Ph.D. degrees.

Related: Filling the Engineering Gap by Vivek Wadhwa - Engineering Economic Benefits - posts on engineering education - Science Serving Society - Authors of Scientific Articles by Country - Educating the Engineer of 2020: NAE Report

May 28, 2008

Quake Lake Danger

Quakes lakes risk ’slurry tsunami’

This month’s 7.9 magnitude tremor spawned 34 so-called quake lakes, according to the International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research expert. The vast pools of water were created when the earthquake triggered landslides down plunging valleys, clogging rivers and turning them into fast-rising lakes. Twenty-eight quake lakes are at risk of bursting, according to Chinese state media agency Xinhua. But the one at Tangjiashan - on the Jianjiang river above the town of Beichuan - is the most precarious.

The delicate, tortuous work involves heavy machinery gingerly shifting debris from the dam, and engineers blasting dynamite to carefully punch holes in the mountain of rubble and soil - although experts warn this risks further destabilising the structure. Nearly 160,000 people in the disaster zone have already been evacuated in case the Tangjiashan quake lake bursts.

Troops and engineers are racing to carve a 500 metre (1,640 ft) channel out of the landscape and divert the water towards the Fujiang river. They aim to complete the giant sluice and begin draining the 300 million cubic metre capacity lake within 10 days. “Once the water begins to flow over the top of the dam there’s nothing you can do to stop it,” said Dr Alex Densmore, of Durham University’s Institute of Hazard and Risk Research.

Little wonder then that Premier Wen Jiabao says he regards draining the swelling quake lakes at China’s ground zero as the nation’s most urgent task.

Related: Quake Lifts Island Ten Feet Out of Ocean - Civil Engineers: USA Infrastructure Needs Improvement - China’s Technology Savvy Leadership - Megaflood Created the English Channel

February 28, 2008

Global Wind Power Installed Capacity

The top five countries in terms of installed capacity are:

  • Germany (22.3 GW - gigawatts)
  • USA (16.8 GW)
  • Spain (15.1 GW)
  • India (8 GW)
  • China (6.1 GW)

Global capacity was increase by 27% in 2007. Record installations in US, China and Spain:

Wind energy has a considerable impact on avoiding greenhouse gases and combating climate change. The global capacity of 94 GW of wind capacity will save about 122 million tons of CO2 every year, which is equivalent to around 20 large coal fired power stations.

“We’re on track to meeting our target of saving 1.5 billion tons of CO2 per year by 2020”, said Steve Sawyer, “but we need a strong, global signal from governments that they are serious about moving away from fossil fuels and protecting the climate.”

Meeting energy needs using wind power is growing very rapidly, which is a great thing. It is still a small contributor to our overall energy needs but every bit helps.

Related: USA Wind power capacity - Capture Wind Energy with a Tethered Turbine - Wind Power Technology Breakthrough

February 15, 2008

China’s Technology Savvy Leadership

China’s Sci-Tech Savvy Leadership by Jocelyn Ford

Until last year, the top nine members of China’s politburo were ALL trained engineers! And guess what? The Communist Party made innovation and global leadership in science and technology national goals.

Ancient China is famous for its early scientific advances, some of which predated western developments by centuries. Its inventions include paper, printing, gunpowder and the compass.

Leadership does matter, but so does the system. It seems to me it should take a lot longer for China to build a sci-tech friendly system than for the U.S. to bring in sci-tech friendly leadership. That’s where you come in Ira & co.

If I may make one final comment: in my ideal world, borders shouldn’t matter. Victory by the best system, with the best leaders, will hopefully be a victory for all earthlings.

CHINA’S POLITBURO (2007): Decline of the engineer. Last fall China introduced a new top lineup that included two law graduates, as well as an economist, and graduates in history, journalism, management and business administration.

I agree that the increase in science and engineering investment around the globe is a positive development. But the USA faces loses that it has enjoyed due to past technology leadership.

China benefits greatly from such scientific knowledge at the highest level of government. The top 9 leaders in China are know as the “Politburo Standing Committee,” the new additions in 2007 were:

Xi Jinping, 54, studied chemical engineering at the Qinghua University and later earned a doctorate in law.

Li Keqiang, 52, obtained MA and doctorate of Economics after attending the on-the-job postgraduate program on Economics at the School of Economics of Peking University.

He Guoqiang, 63, B.S. Beijing Institute of Chemical Engineering.

Zhou Yongkang, 64 “Graduated from the Exploration Department, Beijing Petroleum Institute, majoring in geophysical exploration. With a university education. Senior engineer with a rank equivalent to professor. ” Funny, I don’t remember any U.S. politician exalting their experience as “equivalent to a professor.”

They joined the nine-member echelon with the five remaining members of the previous standing committee, namely Hu Jintao, Wu Bangguo, Wen Jiabao, Jia Qinglin and Li Changchun.

Related: Science Investment, Diplomacy and Economics - Asia: Rising Stars of Science and Engineering - China’s Engineering Innovation Plan - Once Again Engineering Graduates Lead Ranks of S&P 500 CEOs - Authors of Scientific Articles by Country - Best Research University Rankings (2007)

April 3, 2007

Ranking Universities Worldwide

The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities provides another estimate of the top universities. The methodology is far ideal however I still find it interesting. The various attempts to rank schools can provide a general idea of impact of various institutions (though the measures are fairly crude). Still a sensible picture (especially at the country level) can emerge. And the various rankings should be a able to track shifts in the most influential institutions and relative country strength over time. How quickly those rankings track changes will vary depending on the measures used. I would imagine most will lag the “real” changes as it is easy to imagine many measures that would lag. Still, as I have said before, I expect the USA will lose in relative ranking compared to China, India, Japan, Singapore, Mexico…

The ranking methodology used here weighed rankings in: Jiao Tong academic rankings, Essential Science Indicators, Google Scholar, Alexa (a measure of web site visits to universities) and The Times Higher World University Rankings.

Country representation of the top universities (number of top schools in each country):

location Webometrics
Top 100
Jiao Tong
Top 101
% of World
Population
% of World GDP*
USA 53 54   4.6%   30.4%
Germany 10   5  1.3   6.3
Canada   8   4  0.5   2.5
United Kingdom   6 10  0.9   5.0
Australia   3   2  0.3   1.6
Japan   1   6 2.0 10.3
The rest of Europe 16 13
Brazil   1   0   2.8   1.8
Mexico   1   0   1.6   1.7
Israel   0   1   0.1   0.3

* IMF, World Economic Outlook Database, September 2006 (2005 data)
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January 22, 2007

Asia: Rising Stars of Science and Engineering

Great report - The Atlas of Ideas: How Asian innovation can benefit us all by Charles Leadbeater and James Wilsdon:

Each country will develop differently. In South Korea strong government support has created a world-class information infrastructure.

China is mobilising massive resources for innovation through ambitious long-term plans, funded by rapid economic growth. Beijing’s university district produces as many engineers as all of western Europe. China is developing world-class universities and attracting multinational innovation centres.

India’s elite, trained at the Indian Institutes of Technology, are second to none. New institutions like the National Science and Engineering Foundation could energise a disjointed innovation system. Yet India’s innovation elite may face a rural backlash. Its infrastructure is in poor repair and cities like Bengalooru are congested. Even the much-vaunted IITs do not, unlike their US counterparts, animate innovation clusters.
Percentage of world share of scientific publications

Year China France Germany Japan Korea UK US EU-15
1995 2.05 6.09 7.62 8.65 0.79 8.88 33.54 34.36
1998 2.90 6.48 8.82 9.42 1.41 9.08 31.63 36.85
2001 4.30 6.33 8.68 9.52 2.01 8.90 31.01 36.55
2004 6.52 5.84 8.14 8.84 2.70 8.33 30.48 35.18

Excellent reading, the report is full of useful information I have not been able to obsorb yet.
Related: Diplomacy and Science Research - The World’s Best Research Universities - Engineering the Future Economy - Worldwide Science and Engineering Doctoral Degree Data - USA Under-counting Engineering Graduates - Increasing American Fellowship Support for Scientists and Engineers
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August 21, 2006

Diplomacy and Science Research

Today more and more locations are becoming viable for world class research and development. Today the following have significant ability: USA, Europe (many countries), Japan, Canada, China, Brazil, Singapore, Israel, India, Korea and Australia (I am sure I have missed some this is just what come to mind as I type this post) and many more are moving in that direction.

The continued increase of viable locations for significant amounts of cutting edge research and development has huge consequences, in many areas. If paths to research and development are blocked in one location (by law, regulation, choice, lack of capital, threat of significant damage to the career of those who would choose such a course…) other locations will step in. In some ways this will be good (see below for an explanation of why this might be so). Promising new ideas will not be stifled due to one roadblock.

But risks of problems will also increase. For example, there are plenty of reasons to want to go carefully in the way of genetically engineered crops. But those seeking a more conservative approach are going to be challenged: countries that are acting conservatively will see other countries jump in, I believe. And even if this didn’t happen significantly in the area of genetically engineered crops, I still believe it will create challenges. The ability to go elsewhere will make those seeking to put constraints in place in a more difficult position than 50 years ago when the options were much more limited (It might be possible to stop significant research just by getting a handful of countries to agree).

Debates of what restrictions to put on science and technology research and development will be a continuing and increasing area of conflict. And the solutions will not be easy. Hopefully we will develop a system of diplomacy that works, but that is much easier said than done. And the United States will have to learn they do not have the power to dictate terms to others. This won’t be an easy thing to accept for many in America. The USA will still have a great deal of influence, due mainly to economic power but that influence is only the ability to influence others and that ability will decline if diplomacy is not improved. Diplomacy may not seem to be a science and engineering area but it is going to be increasingly be a major factor in the progress of science and engineering. (more…)

August 19, 2006

The World’s Best Research Universities

Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University produces a ranking of the top universities annually (since 2003). The methodology used focuses on research (publications) and faculty quality (Fields and Nobel awards and citations). While this seems a very simplistic ranking it still provides some interesting data: highlights from the 2006 rankings of Top 500 Universities worldwide include:

Country representation in the top schools:

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location Top 101 % of World
Population
% of World GDP % of top 500
USA 54   4.6%   28.4%  33.4%
United Kingdom 10  0.9   5.1 8.6
Japan   6 2.0 11.2 6.4
Canada   4  0.5   2.4 8.0
The rest of Europe 18 4.4
Australia   2   0.3   1.5 3.2
Israel   1   0.1   0.3 1.4

Update: see our post on 2007 best research universities results

Top 10 schools:

  • Harvard University
  • Cambridge University
  • Stanford University
  • University of California at Berkeley
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT)
  • California Institute of Technology
  • Columbia University
  • Princeton University
  • University Chicago
  • Oxford University

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July 14, 2006

China Builds a Better Internet

China Builds a Better Internet (site broke the link so I removed it)

China is looking to become a scientific leader, with projects like China’s Next Generation Internet, to strengthen their economy by creating

its own scientific and technological breakthroughs—using a new and improved version of today’s dominant innovation platform, the Internet. “CNGI is the culmination of this revolutionary plan” to turn China into the world’s innovation capital, says Wu Hequan, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

The United States’ reluctance to invest in IPv6 makes it more likely that China will be in a position to gain the first-mover advantage it seeks. A draft version of a January 2006 report by the Department of Commerce on IPv6 contained a section on competitiveness that highlighted several threats to U.S. Internet leadership, including a further shift of high-tech R&D and product innovation eastward and less available investment capital because of the higher costs of maintaining IPv4 networks. What remains to be seen is whether China can develop the services that take advantage of the next-generation Internet. But China’s researchers are already working on it. At the IPv6 Global Summit in April, China’s major telecommunications and Internet companies got up on stage one by one and told the audience that they have research facilities dedicated to developing these services.

IPv6 is coming, in fact it is already here, though in a limited way. The work started in 1994 when the IPv6 working group was established and proposed standard adopted by the Internet Engineering Steering Group.

IEEE-USA chief calls for IPv6 adoption:

Adoption of a next-generation Internet Protocol by China, Japan and South Korea and other Asian countries should raised questions about U.S. innovation policy, the president of IEEE-USA told an IPv6 conference here Friday
July 6, 2006

China challenges dominance of USA, Europe and Japan

China challenges dominance of USA, Europe and Japan in scientific research according to UNESCO Science Report 2005

The report says that “the most remarkable trend is to be found in Asia, where gross expenditure on R&D has grown from a world share of 27.9% in 1997 to 31.5% in 2002”.

This hardly seems impressive compared to the growth of Google say. However the amounts of money for global R&D are huge and so changes as less dramatic than other areas. Still this is significant and seems likely to continue to move in this direction.
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July 5, 2006

Wind Power Technology Breakthrough

China Makes Huge Breakthrough in Wind Power Technology by Zijun Li:

Chinese developers unveiled the world’s first full-permanent magnetic levitation (Maglev) wind power generator at the Wind Power Asia Exhibition 2006 held June 28 in Beijing, according to Xinhua News.

The Maglev generator is expected to boost wind energy generating capacity by as much as 20 percent over traditional wind turbines. This would effectively cut the operational expenses of wind farms by up to half, keeping the overall cost of wind power under 0.4 yuan (5 cents US), according to Guokun Li, the chief scientific developer of the new technology. Further, the Maglev is able to utilize winds with starting speeds as low as 1.5 meters per second (m/s), and cut-in speeds of 3 m/s, the chief of Zhongke Energy was quoted as saying at the exhibition. When compared with the operational hours of existing wind turbines, the new technology will add an additional 1,000 hours of operation annually to wind power plants in areas with an average wind speed of 3 m/s.
May 30, 2006

China and USA Basic Science Research

US$425 million to boost Chinese innovation by Fu Jing:

The National Natural Science Foundation of China will provide 3.4 billion yuan (US$425 million) in funding for basic science, it announced last week (25 May).

“The boost has shown the government’s determination for China to become an innovative country by 2020,” said the foundation’s vice-president Zhu Zuoyan. He added that the foundation’s research funding is set to grow by about 20 per cent a year for the next five years.

According to government plans, China’s total investment in science and technology should reach 2.5 per cent of its gross domestic product by 2020 — a share similar to that spent by industrialised nations.
By that time, China aims to be spending about US$112 billion annually on research and development (see China announces 58-point plan to boost science).

U.S. National Science Foundation Celebrates Opening of Beijing Office

The National Science Foundation is a U.S. government agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, with an annual budget of $5.58 billion.

According to the NSF report, Science and Engineering Indicators 2006, China ranked fourth in the world in the year 2000 in research and development, with $48.9 billion in expenditures. Two years later, the country ranked third, behind the United States and Japan, spending an estimated $72.0 billion on R&D.

“It is important for the U.S. scientific community, especially young researchers, to be aware of and consider collaborating with colleagues in China in this environment,” said Beijing office Director William Chang.

The NSF Beijing Office is NSF’s third foreign office. NSF also maintains research offices in Paris and Tokyo.

May 24, 2006

House Testimony on Engineering Education

Testimony of Vivek Wadhwa to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce,
May 16, 2006.

Vivek Wadhwa has continued the work published in the Duke study: Framing the Engineering Outsourcing Debate. In the testimony he provides an update on the data provided in the report.

Contrary to the popular view that India and China have an abundance of engineers, recent studies show that both countries may actually face severe shortages of dynamic engineers. The vast majority of graduates from these counties have the qualities of transactional engineers.

Differentiating between dynamic and transactional engineers is a start, but we also need to look at specific fields of engineering where the U.S can maintain a distinct advantage. Professor Myers lists specializations such as systems biology and personalized medicine, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics that he believes will give the U.S a long term advantage.

Our education system gives our students broad exposure to many different fields of study. Our engineers learn biology and art, they gain significant practical experience and learn to innovate and become entrepreneurs. Few Indian and Chinese universities provide such advantages to their students.

The dynamic and transactional differences were mentioned in his business week article: Filling the Engineering Gap.

The conclusion he presents seems wise to me.

The numbers that are at the center of the debate on US engineering competitiveness are not accurate. The US may need to graduate more of certain types of engineers, but we have not determined what we need. By simply reacting to the numbers, we may actually reduce our competitiveness. Let’s better understand the problem before we debate the remedy.

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