Collaboration rates (%)

0 100

0–500

500–1,000

1,000–1,500

1,500–2,000

2,000–2,500

2,500–3,000

3,000–3,500

Number of collaborativepublications (2008–12)

Other internationalcollaborations

No internationalcollaboration

Collaborations involving otherSouth American nations

200,000

Total number of

pub

licat

ions

(200

8–12)

100,000

50,00025,0

0010,000

Expenditure on R&D as a percentage of GDP Domestic and foreignpatents granted in 2012,per 1 million people*

2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010

BOLIVIA

222

PARAGUAY

87

URUGUAY

799

COLOMBIA

4,556

GUYANA

20 SURINAME

25FRENCH GUIANA

69

ECUADOR

524

Citation impact weighted by research �eld (1 = world average)

South American share of world publications (%)

0

1

2

3

4

1996 2000 2004 2008 20121998 2002 2006 2010

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012

Argentina

Brazil

Chile

Colombia

Peru

Venezuela

South America average

NUMBER OF ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN ELSEVIER’S CITATION DATABASE SCOPUS IN 2013(see ‘The hiddencontinent’ below)

BRAZIL: 46,306In the past 20 years, Brazil’s scienti�c output has risen by more than a factor of �ve, as its economy has almost tripled in terms of purchasing power. The country now accounts for more than two-thirds of South America’s entire research output — although it is broadly similar to Argentina, Uruguay and Chile in terms of articles per capita.

VENEZUELA: 1,315The only South American nation whose scienti�c output is declining: its publication tally fell by 29% between 2009 and 2013.

ARGENTINA: 9,337Has hauled up the impact of its research to just above the world’s average — outperforming Brazil.

PERU: 1,044Nearly three-quarters of Peru’s articles involve collaborations with other countries. The most-cited articles include work on prevention of HIV, tuberculosis and lupus.

CHILE: 6,794As well as its astronomical observatories, the country has also found scienti�c success working on food crops, such as a highly cited collaboration on the genome of the potato.

South America’s research strength may be underestimated because its researchers often publish in journals that are not indexed in major citation databases, such as Elsevier’s Scopus or Thomson Reuter’s Science Citation Index. In 2012, for example, some 6,000 of the roughly 20,000

0 2 4 6 8

Argentina

Full-time equivalent researchers per 1,000 labour force

*No veri�ed �gures for Venezuela, no up-to-date data for Peru. Data are incomplete for Ecuador and Chile.

Brazil

Bolivia

Chile

ColombiaEcuador

Paraguay

Uruguay

Venezuela

United StatesChina

THE PUBLISHING LANDSCAPESouth America has boosted itsshare of the world’s research articles — but at 4%, it still underperforms slightly relative to its 5–6% share of world population and GDP.

RESEARCH SPENDINGArgentina and Brazil’s spending on research and development (R&D) has shot up even faster than their economies have grown. Brazil remains the region’s only country to devote more than 1% of its economy to R&D*.

PATENTS GRANTEDIn Brazil, nearly half of research funding comes from the business sector; in other South American nations, the share from businesses is generally much lower, a stark contrast with many industrialized countries. Poor private investment results in a small number of patents granted per capita, where South American countries look particularly weak.

COLLABORATION AND EXCELLENCESouth America’s scholarly impact remains relatively low — its citation rate last year was around 80% of the world’s average (below). Peru’s articles do best, largely because most are co-authored with scientists outside the continent. Indeed, the region’s less-developed countries are generally more likely to collaborate beyond South America. In Brazil, less than one-quarter of its articles in 2008–12 involved such partnerships (right).

RESEARCH STRENGTHBrazil has more than 100,000 full-time researchers, single-handedly providing nearly two-thirds of South America’s science personnel. But Argentina has the greatest proportion of researchers, with almost 3 scientists for every 1,000 workers.

0

0.5

1.0

1.5

Argentina

Bolivia

Brazil

Chile

ColombiaEcuador

Paraguay

Uruguay

ARGENTINA

ARGENTINA

CHILE

CHILE

BOLIVIA

BOLIVIA

URUGUAY

URUGUAY

PERU

PERU

COLOMBIA

COLOMBIA

VENEZUELA

VENEZUELA

ECUADOR

ECUADOR

Chin

a: 1

12

.67

SouthAmerica

papers that Brazil published in SciELO (Scienti�c Electronic Library Online), a subsidized collection of mainly Latin American journals, were not indexed in Thomson Reuter’s database. But last year, Thomson Reuters agreed to create a database for the SciELO index.

PARAGUAY

PARAGUAY

According to the World Bank, economic indicators suggest that Brazil should have registered 50% more patents with the US patent o�ce than it actually did in 2006–10.

In 2011, US spending was 2.8% of GDP.

BRAZIL

BRAZIL

Brazil and Argentina are central to co-authorship networks within South America, and the United States is the top international collaborator for every nation.

For more on South American science see:nature.com/southamerica

NATURE.COM

DESIGN BY WESLEY FERNANDES/NATURE; MAP, PUBLISHING LANDSCAPE: SCIVAL, FROM ELSEVIER/SCOPUS DATABASE; THE HIDDEN CONTINENT: ABEL PACKER/SCIELO; COLLABORATION AND EXCELLENCE: ELSEVIER/SCOPUS AND R. VAN NOORDEN/SCOPUS; RESEARCH STRENGTH: RICYT/UNESCO; RESEARCH SPENDING AND PATENTS: RICYT/UNESCO/WIPO/WORLD BANK

�e hidden continent

United

Sta

tes:

72

9.2

5

Chile

: 1

3.5

2

Uru

guay

: 6

.47

Bra

zil:

5.1

7

Col

ombia

:

Per

u: 0

.93

Par

aguay

: 0

.45

Arg

entina:

8.6

2

3.2

1

*As recorded by the World IntellectualProperty Organization

T he expanding economies of South America have led to a significant rise in scientific output over the past

two decades, and research spending has increased in most countries. But given the region’s share of the world’s population and gross domestic product (GDP), publication rates still fall short of what would be expected. Research quality has not kept

pace with rising output, and the continent’s research papers still struggle to attract citations from the rest of the world. There are huge inequalities across the region, too: Brazil dominates the publication record, for example, whereas Chile takes pole position in the patent landscape and Argentina scores highly in terms of the proportion of its population working in science.

By Richard Van Noorden

SOUTH AMERICAby the numbers

2 0 2 | N A T U R E | V O L 5 1 0 | 1 2 J U N E 2 0 1 4© 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

Collaboration rates (%)

0 100

0–500

500–1,000

1,000–1,500

1,500–2,000

2,000–2,500

2,500–3,000

3,000–3,500

Number of collaborativepublications (2008–12)

Other internationalcollaborations

No internationalcollaboration

Collaborations involving otherSouth American nations

200,000

Total number of

pub

licat

ions

(200

8–12)

100,000

50,00025,0

0010,000

Expenditure on R&D as a percentage of GDP Domestic and foreignpatents granted in 2012,per 1 million people*

2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010

BOLIVIA

222

PARAGUAY

87

URUGUAY

799

COLOMBIA

4,556

GUYANA

20 SURINAME

25FRENCH GUIANA

69

ECUADOR

524

Citation impact weighted by research �eld (1 = world average)

South American share of world publications (%)

0

1

2

3

4

1996 2000 2004 2008 20121998 2002 2006 2010

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012

Argentina

Brazil

Chile

Colombia

Peru

Venezuela

South America average

NUMBER OF ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN ELSEVIER’S CITATION DATABASE SCOPUS IN 2013(see ‘The hiddencontinent’ below)

BRAZIL: 46,306In the past 20 years, Brazil’s scienti�c output has risen by more than a factor of �ve, as its economy has almost tripled in terms of purchasing power. The country now accounts for more than two-thirds of South America’s entire research output — although it is broadly similar to Argentina, Uruguay and Chile in terms of articles per capita.

VENEZUELA: 1,315The only South American nation whose scienti�c output is declining: its publication tally fell by 29% between 2009 and 2013.

ARGENTINA: 9,337Has hauled up the impact of its research to just above the world’s average — outperforming Brazil.

PERU: 1,044Nearly three-quarters of Peru’s articles involve collaborations with other countries. The most-cited articles include work on prevention of HIV, tuberculosis and lupus.

CHILE: 6,794As well as its astronomical observatories, the country has also found scienti�c success working on food crops, such as a highly cited collaboration on the genome of the potato.

South America’s research strength may be underestimated because its researchers often publish in journals that are not indexed in major citation databases, such as Elsevier’s Scopus or Thomson Reuter’s Science Citation Index. In 2012, for example, some 6,000 of the roughly 20,000

0 2 4 6 8

Argentina

Full-time equivalent researchers per 1,000 labour force

*No veri�ed �gures for Venezuela, no up-to-date data for Peru. Data are incomplete for Ecuador and Chile.

Brazil

Bolivia

Chile

ColombiaEcuador

Paraguay

Uruguay

Venezuela

United StatesChina

THE PUBLISHING LANDSCAPESouth America has boosted itsshare of the world’s research articles — but at 4%, it still underperforms slightly relative to its 5–6% share of world population and GDP.

RESEARCH SPENDINGArgentina and Brazil’s spending on research and development (R&D) has shot up even faster than their economies have grown. Brazil remains the region’s only country to devote more than 1% of its economy to R&D*.

PATENTS GRANTEDIn Brazil, nearly half of research funding comes from the business sector; in other South American nations, the share from businesses is generally much lower, a stark contrast with many industrialized countries. Poor private investment results in a small number of patents granted per capita, where South American countries look particularly weak.

COLLABORATION AND EXCELLENCESouth America’s scholarly impact remains relatively low — its citation rate last year was around 80% of the world’s average (below). Peru’s articles do best, largely because most are co-authored with scientists outside the continent. Indeed, the region’s less-developed countries are generally more likely to collaborate beyond South America. In Brazil, less than one-quarter of its articles in 2008–12 involved such partnerships (right).

RESEARCH STRENGTHBrazil has more than 100,000 full-time researchers, single-handedly providing nearly two-thirds of South America’s science personnel. But Argentina has the greatest proportion of researchers, with almost 3 scientists for every 1,000 workers.

0

0.5

1.0

1.5

Argentina

Bolivia

Brazil

Chile

ColombiaEcuador

Paraguay

Uruguay

ARGENTINA

ARGENTINA

CHILE

CHILE

BOLIVIA

BOLIVIA

URUGUAY

URUGUAY

PERU

PERU

COLOMBIA

COLOMBIA

VENEZUELA

VENEZUELA

ECUADOR

ECUADOR

Chin

a: 1

12

.67

SouthAmerica

papers that Brazil published in SciELO (Scienti�c Electronic Library Online), a subsidized collection of mainly Latin American journals, were not indexed in Thomson Reuter’s database. But last year, Thomson Reuters agreed to create a database for the SciELO index.

PARAGUAY

PARAGUAY

According to the World Bank, economic indicators suggest that Brazil should have registered 50% more patents with the US patent o�ce than it actually did in 2006–10.

In 2011, US spending was 2.8% of GDP.

BRAZIL

BRAZIL

Brazil and Argentina are central to co-authorship networks within South America, and the United States is the top international collaborator for every nation.

For more on South American science see:nature.com/southamerica

NATURE.COM

DESIGN BY WESLEY FERNANDES/NATURE; MAP, PUBLISHING LANDSCAPE: SCIVAL, FROM ELSEVIER/SCOPUS DATABASE; THE HIDDEN CONTINENT: ABEL PACKER/SCIELO; COLLABORATION AND EXCELLENCE: ELSEVIER/SCOPUS AND R. VAN NOORDEN/SCOPUS; RESEARCH STRENGTH: RICYT/UNESCO; RESEARCH SPENDING AND PATENTS: RICYT/UNESCO/WIPO/WORLD BANK

�e hidden continent

United

Sta

tes:

72

9.2

5

Chile

: 1

3.5

2

Uru

guay

: 6

.47

Bra

zil:

5.1

7

Col

ombia

:

Per

u: 0

.93

Par

aguay

: 0

.45

Arg

entina:

8.6

2

3.2

1

*As recorded by the World IntellectualProperty Organization

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© 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved