hankyoreh

South Korea's ranking in terms of the number of scientific papers cited in a global reference index rose one notch to 13th place in 2006, the government said Tuesday.

The Ministry of Science and Technology said 23,286 papers with South Korean authors were posted on the Science Citation Index Extended (SCIE) database. This is a gain from 23,089 papers the previous year, when the country ranked 14th.

The SCIE, part of a vast Web knowledge service produced by Thomson ISI database, is used worldwide as a measure of a country's prowess in science and technology research.

"The total is equivalent to 2.05 percent of all papers that were cited in the National Science Indicator of the SCIE," said a ministry official. He added that scientific papers from 178 countries were listed on the database.

By sector, South Korea ranked sixth and seventh, respectively, in computer and material sciences, and ninth in general engineering, physics and pharmacology.

The SCIE showed that the United States had the largest amount with 293,254 papers cited, followed by Britain, Germany, Japan and China. It said these five countries accounted for 51.4 percent of all papers listed on the database.

In addition, the Science Ministry said that from 2002-2006, each South Korean paper was used as a reference 3.22 times on average, an increase from 3.04 in the 2001-2005 period.

South Korea's ranking in this field rose by two notches to 28th place it said.

Switzerland led the pack in terms of how often each paper was cited in scientific works from other countries, followed by Denmark, the United States, the Netherlands and Sweden.
SEOUL, June 12 (Yonhap News)