You might be interested in the Thomson ISI study on influential research. The study only looks at 13 nations although these are presumably the 13 largest in terms of scientific output. Australia was ranked 10th in total papers and 8th in terms of total papers among 1% most cited. Australia was 5th highest in terms of percentage of total papers in all fields in top 1% most cited (presumably this is somewhat of proxy for systemic quality).

I note that 4 of the top 5 nations in the latter category are Anglo-American so I guess this does raise some questions as to cultural bias in Thomson ISI data and/or the impact of the US as the centre of gravity of academic research. Nevertheless taken alone the data do not exactly suggest a system in crisis in Australia ...

Bradley Smith
Executive Director
Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies
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