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International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness (2007)

Chapter: 3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large

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Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

3
Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering at Large

Chapters 3 and 4 present the results of the benchmarking exercise that the Panel undertook in assessing the international competitiveness of U.S. research in chemical engineering. Chapter 3 summarizes the results for chemical engineering at large, while Chapter 4 presents the results for each subarea of chemical engineering. The approach that the Panel followed for the benchmarking exercise was outlined in Section 2.2.

The presentation of results in this chapter is structured as follows: Section 3.1 describes the composition of the Virtual World Congress (VWC) for each subarea of chemical engineering and draws conclusions on the leadership of U.S. chemical engineering research at large. The detailed analysis of the VWC composition for each subarea is given in Chapter 4. Section 3.2 summarizes the analysis of chemical engineering publications and citations, while Section 3.3 presents the results of a patent analysis. Section 3.4 examines the distribution of prizes, awards, and other recognitions, and Section 3.5 summarizes the Panel’s assessment of the current health of U.S. research in chemical engineering at large.

3.1
VIRTUAL WORLD CONGRESS

Table 3.1 summarizes the results of the Virtual World Congress for all subareas of chemical engineering. The table has three parts (from left to right):

  1. The third column of the table presents the total and the relative numbers of U.S. and non-U.S. experts for each subarea.

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

TABLE 3.1 Data for the Virtual World Congress of Chemical Engineering

Area

Subarea

Engineering Science of Physical Processes

Transport processes

Thermodynamics

Rheology

Separation

Solid particles technology

Engineering Science of Chemical Processes

Catalysis

Kinetics and reaction eng.

Polymerization reaction eng.

Electrochemical processes

Engineering Science of Biological Processes

Biocatalysis and protein eng.

Cellular and metabolic eng.

Bioprocess engineering

Systems, computational, and synthetic biology

Molecular and Interfacial Science and Engineering Materials: Molecular Design, Morphology, Processing

Molecular and Supramolecular Assemblies, Micro-Nanopatterned Surfaces and Thin Films

Polymers

Inorganic & ceramic materials

Composite

Nanostructured materials

Biomedical Products, Bio-inspired materials, Biomaterials and Biohybrids Energy

Drug targeting and delivery systems

Biomaterials

Materials for cell and tissue engineering

Fossil energy extraction and processing

Fossil fuel utilization

Non-fossil energy

Environmental Impact and Management: Safety and Health

Air pollution

Water pollution

Green engineering

Aerosol S&E

Process Systems Development and Engineering

Process development and design

Dynamics, control, and operational optimization

Safety and operability of chemical plants

Computational tools and information technology

TOTAL

 

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

Organizers of Virtual World Congress

Virtual World Congress Speakers (including duplications in nominations)

Virtual World Congress Speakers (excluding duplications in nominations)

No. of Experts Polled

U.S.

Non-U.S.

% U.S.

No. of Nominations

U.S.

Non-U.S.

% U.S.

No. of Unique Speakers Proposed

U.S.

Non-U.S.

%

7

5

2

71

113

92

21

81

65

50

15

77

11

11

0

100

217

148

69

68

114

70

44

61

8

6

2

75

113

70

43

62

66

34

32

52

9

9

0

100

158

116

42

73

63

41

22

65

6

5

1

83

113

65

48

58

70

36

34

51

7

7

0

100

144

81

63

56

66

33

33

50

8

7

1

88

142

98

44

69

81

51

30

63

11

10

1

91

165

80

85

48

89

39

50

44

5

3

2

60

67

38

29

57

52

26

26

50

7

6

1

86

130

70

60

54

72

30

42

42

8

6

2

75

123

92

31

75

57

43

14

75

7

5

2

71

153

105

48

69

104

65

39

63

9

9

0

100

145

115

30

79

83

65

18

78

15

14

1

93

268

186

82

69

166

105

61

63

20

19

1

95

341

254

87

74

151

102

49

68

14

12

2

86

269

184

85

68

169

106

63

63

10

9

1

90

141

107

34

76

113

79

34

70

14

13

1

93

247

183

64

74

134

88

46

66

11

8

3

73

187

126

61

67

94

60

34

64

10

8

2

80

170

134

36

79

77

62

15

81

6

6

0

100

116

91

25

78

73

55

18

75

4

4

0

100

58

42

16

72

58

42

16

72

8

6

2

75

113

60

53

53

116

65

51

56

6

4

2

67

90

43

47

48

87

43

44

49

7

6

1

86

120

68

52

57

114

65

49

57

7

7

0

100

118

95

23

81

93

78

15

84

10

6

4

60

146

83

63

57

110

74

36

67

5

3

2

60

117

67

50

57

96

57

39

59

16

10

6

63

258

148

110

57

124

73

51

59

12

8

4

67

212

122

90

58

75

49

26

65

11

10

1

91

179

137

42

77

102

70

32

69

7

5

2

71

118

74

44

63

63

41

22

65

296

247

49

83

5051

3374

1677

67

2997

1897

1100

63

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
  1. The fourth column shows the total number and the percentages of U.S. and non-U.S. participants (speakers) in the VWC for each subarea. These numbers include duplications, i.e., if a specific person was recommended by two experts for the same congress, the entry in the totals is 2.

  2. The fifth column is based on the same information as the middle section, but each participant has been counted once, even if he/she was proposed by several experts.

A total of 296 experts in various areas of chemical engineering were engaged to organize the VWC (see Appendix 3A at the end of this chapter): 83% from the United States and 17% from other countries. For the various subareas the percentage of U.S. organizers ranged from 60% (electrochemical processes; green engineering) to 100% (thermodynamics; separation; catalysis; systems, computational, and synthetic biology; materials for cell and tissue engineering; fossil energy extraction and processing; water pollution), depending on the specific subarea. The preponderance of U.S. names is not surprising given the historical strength of chemical engineering in the United States.

The composition of the resulting Virtual World Congresses, overall and for the various subareas, is the outcome of significance for this benchmarking exercise. As Table 3.1 indicates, 2,997 researchers were recommended for inclusion in the VWC: 1,897 (63%) from the United States and 1,100 (37%) from other countries. The 63% overall U.S. representation in the VWC is in line with the fractional U.S. representation in the list of most-cited publications for 2000-2006 (74%, see Table 3.3), which is a metric that also denotes relative quality and impact. Consequently, the overall composition of the VWC suggests that U.S. chemical engineering research, at large, is “Dominant, at the Forefront” of developments in the discipline.

When we examine the U.S. fractional representation in the VWC for each subarea, we notice that it varies from 42% (biocatalysis and protein engineering) to 77% (transport processes) of all participants, suggesting that U.S. research in every subarea of chemical engineering is either “Dominant, at the Forefront” (65% or more of participants) or “Among World Leaders” (42% to 65% of participants).

In Chapter 4, the specific numbers of Table 3.1 for each subarea are analyzed in conjunction with other information, in order to draw conclusions on the relative position of U.S. chemical engineering research in the corresponding subarea.

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

3.2
JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS

In this section we will discuss the macroscopic trends, on a worldwide basis, of the publications and citations data collected for five time periods from 1980 to 2006 for the field of chemical engineering at large. Appendix 3B lists all the journals that were considered. They were grouped in the following three categories:

  • journals with broad coverage of chemical engineering research

  • journals with broad coverage of sciences and engineering disciplines, in which chemical engineers publish

  • leading journals for each subarea of chemical engineering

The total number of papers published was found by searching the Web of Science (http://portal.isiknowledge.com/portal.cgi) for all publications during the corresponding period, with the requirement that a co-author had a chemical engineering affiliation in the address field. For the United States, a chemical engineering affiliation is a good indicator that a researcher is involved in chemical engineering research. Recent changes in the affiliation of academic researchers from chemical engineering departments to biological engineering or biomedical engineering departments have been taken into account; biological and biomedical engineering departments populated recently by the transfer of chemical engineers were included in the search and the lists were pruned by eliminating the faculty members in these departments who did not hold a Ph.D. in chemical engineering.. However, for non-U.S. researchers with research activities within the scope of chemical engineering as understood in the United States, the corresponding affiliation is not a very good indicator. Many such researchers are affiliated with departments that do not contain “chemical engineering” in their name. Particular attention on select very active universities in Europe and Japan (e.g. ETH-Zurich and Kyoto University, respectively), was given to include the contributions of the non-U.S. researchers who would qualify as chemical engineers, but the numbers of papers by non-U.S. chemical engineering researchers should be viewed as lower bounds.

3.2.a
Summary of the Macro Trends

Analysis of publications and citations by chemical engineers in all three groups of journals has revealed the following trends:

  • Trend 1: The relative volume of the U.S.-originated journal publications by chemical engineers, as a fraction of the worldwide total, has been halved over the past 20 years.

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
  • Trend 2: U.S. publications in chemical engineering continue to exercise academic leadership with strong scientific and technological impact worldwide. The relative degree of leadership has been decreasing over the past 10 years.

  • Trend 3: The relative volume (as a fraction of the total) of U.S.-originated publications in broadly based chemical engineering journals has been reduced by 25%-30% over the past 10-15 years.

  • Trend 4: The fraction of U.S.-originated contributions, in broadly based chemical engineering journals, with research subjects in the classical coreareas of transport processes, thermodynamics, kinetics and reaction engineering, and process systems engineering, has been reduced by more than the overall fraction in Trend-3, i.e., 50%-60% versus 25%-30% reductions.

  • Trend 5: The fraction of the top-cited (in the top 100 most-cited papers) U.S.-originated publications in broadly based chemical engineering journals has been reduced by one-third over the past 10-15 years.

  • Trend 6: The fraction of chemical engineering contributions in broadly based scientific journals, e.g., Science, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has roughly doubled in the past 5-10 years. Among such contributions U.S.-originated publications represent about 90% of the total.

Taken together, the implications from the above trends are clear:

  • Implication 1: The volume of research in chemical engineering around the world, especially in the European Union and Asia has been increasing at a higher (European Union) and frantic (Asia) rate compared to that in the United States, but the quality and impact still trail appreciably that in the United States.

  • Implication 2: Research in U.S. chemical engineering has been driven away from the historical core of chemical engineering toward the periphery, where it meets and overlaps with a variety of other sciences (primarily) and engineering disciplines (secondarily).

  • Implication 3: While the quality and impact of U.S. research in chemical engineering is still dominant and at the forefront of developments, this leadership position has been weakened over the past 10-15 years, especially in the core areas of the discipline.

In the following paragraphs we will present the details of the data analysis that led to the formation of the above trends and implications.

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

3.2.b
Analysis of Publications and Citations from All Journals

The number of papers from U.S. chemical engineering researchers has dominated the world output over the past 20 years, as Table 3.2 and Figure 3.1 indicate. However, although the number of U.S.-originated publications has increased by a factor of 3.7, its relative contribution to the world total during the past 20 years has been roughly halved from 71% in the period 1980-1984 to 37% in the period 2000-2006 (Trend 1). This is due to a significantly faster growth in the number of publications from chemical engineering researchers across the world. For example, the factor of growth between the 1980-1984 and 2000-2006 periods for various geographic regions is as follows:

  • Asia (China, Korea, Taiwan, India): 35

  • Central and South America: 23

  • European Union (25 countries): 15

  • Japan: 4

The 3.7-fold increase in the volume of U.S. publications is primarily the result of an impressive growth in productivity of U.S. researchers, given the fact that the yearly rate of growth in the number of researchers has not increased by a similar factor (see Chapter 5 for trends in numbers of PhD graduates). In contrast, most of the gains in the growth of Asian and European Union publications have come as a result of a significant yearly rate of growth in the number of researchers.

While the relative volume of U.S.-originated chemical engineering publications, as fraction of the world total, has been halved, the academic impact and leadership of the U.S. chemical engineering output has remained at fairly high levels (Trend 2). For example:

TABLE 3.2 Number of Published Papers Originated from Researchers with Chemical Engineering Affiliation at Various Geographic Regions

 

1980-1984

1985-1989

1990-1994

1995-1999

2000-2006

United States

8,933

14,230

17,528

21,334

32,899

European Union

890

1,715

3,470

7,015

13,442

Japan

1,647

2,386

3,209

4,022

6,978

Canada

1,182

1,617

2,234

2,605

4,246

South America

81

121

271

651

1,863

Asia (China, Korea, Taiwan, India)

958

1,837

3,907

9,930

33,124

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

FIGURE 3.1 Number of published papers in chemical engineering from various geographic regions.

NOTE: Asia comprises China, Korea, Taiwan, and India, and the European Union is 25 countries.

  • Table 3.3 shows that U.S.-originated publications completely dominated the list of the 100 most-cited publications when the analysis was carried out for the period 1985-1990: 86 of the top 100, 46 of the top 50, 19 of the top 20, and 10 of the top 10. The analysis for the period 2000-2006 indicates a continued but weaker dominance of U.S. publications in the list of the 100 most cited: 73 of the top 100, 37 of the top 50, 13 of the top 20, and 6 of the top 10. It is worth noting that of the 86 most-cited U.S. publications with U.S. chemical engineers as co-authors (period, 1985-1990), 73 had a chemical engineer as the corresponding author, while 13 had a U.S. nonchemical engineer as the corresponding author. In the period 2000-2006, of the 74 most-cited U.S. papers, the corresponding numbers are 50 with a chemical engineer as the corresponding author and 24 with a nonchemical engineer as the corresponding author, indicating an appreciable expansion in interdisciplinary research collaboration. This feature of substantial interdisciplinarity will become more evident later on in this report in Chapter 4. It is also noteworthy that in the period 2000-2006, no

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

TABLE 3.3 Most-Cited Papers by Researchers with Chemical Engineering Affiliation (1985-1990 and 2000-2006)

 

1985-1990

 

2000-2006

U.S.

EU

Canada

Japan

Australia

U.S.

EU

Canada

Switzerland

Asia

Top 100

86

2

5

5

2

Top 100

73

10

3

1

13

Top 10

10

0

0

0

0

Top 10

6

3

 

1

 

Top 20

19

0

1

0

0

Top 20

13

4

 

1

2

Top 30

28

0

1

1

0

Top 30

20

4

2

1

3

Top 50

46

1

1

1

1

Top 50

37

6

2

1

4

Japanese contributions were in the top 100 and Asian contributions came from Korea and China.

  • Table 3.4 shows the distribution of the most-cited papers among the various subareas, used to characterize chemical engineering for the purposes of this report, thus underlining the shifts in research emphasis during the past 15-20 years. From the entries of the table it is very clear how the research emphasis has shifted from Area-1 to Areas- 3, 5, and 6. Clearly, numbers of citations vary significantly among the various subareas and may cause uncertainty on the validity of the observed trends. However, these trends will be confirmed with additional data in subsequent paragraphs.

  • It is also interesting to see in what journals the most-cited papers were published. Table 3.5 shows the distribution of the most-cited papers among different groups of papers. These trends will be confirmed with additional data in subsequent paragraphs.

  • The graphs in Figures 3.2 and 3.3 show the evolution of the percentages of published papers from each geographic region with more than 200 and 100 citations, respectively, during the last 20 years. The graph of Figure 3.4, percentage of papers with more than 10 citations, shows a relative parity among the various regions, but this is the group of publications of lesser impact. Note: The numbers in Figures 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4 are percentages of the total number of papers from a given geographic area that satisfy the corresponding citations thresholds.

Clearly, the U.S. dominance in academic impact and leadership, demonstrated by the tables and figures is partly due to historical reasons, that is, to the earlier activity of U.S. researchers compared to that of their Asian and EU counterparts. One would expect that as non-U.S. contributions to archival journals increase, their relative impact will increase as well. Indeed, it noteworthy that of the top 100 most-cited papers, 13 have come from

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

TABLE 3.4 Distribution of 100 Most-Cited Papers Among the Areas of Chemical Engineering Considered in This Report

Area

 

Subarea

1985-1990 100 Most-Cited Papers

2000-2006 100 Most-Cited Papers

Engineering Science of Physical Processes

1a

Transport processes

14

2

1b

Thermodynamics

24

10

1c

Rheology

7

5

1d

Separation

10

5

1e

Solid particles technology

2

0

Engineering Science of Chemical Processes

2a

Catalysis

12

11

2b

Kinetics and reaction eng.

9

4

2c

Polymerization reaction eng.

2

6

2d

Electrochemical processes

0

0

Engineering Science of Biological Processes

3a

Biocatalysis and protein eng.

1

3

3b

Cellular and metabolic eng.

0

6

3c

Biochemical engineering

3

0

3d

Systems, computational, and synthetic biology

0

2

Molecular and Interfacial

4a

10

12

Science and Engineering Materials

5a

Polymers

13

7

5b

Inorganic and ceramic materials

3

19

5d

Composite

2

4

5e

Nanostructured materials

1

11

Biomedical Products and Biomaterials

6a

Drug targeting and delivery systems

3

3

6b

Biomaterials

1

5

6c

Materials for cell and tissue engineering

1

7

Energy

7a

Fossil energy extraction and processing

0

0

7b

Fossil fuel utilization

1

3

7d

Non-fossil energy

0

1

Environmental Impact and Management

8a

Air pollution

0

0

8b

Water pollution

1

0

8c

Aerosol science and technology

0

1

8d

Green engineering

0

1

Process Systems Development and Engineering

9a

Process development and design

0

0

9b

Dynamics, control, operational optimization

2

1

9c

Safety and operability of chemical plants

0

0

9d

Computational tools and information technology

0

0

TOTAL

122

129

OVERLAPa

 

 

22

29

a The overlap results from accounting the same paper as separate entry in more than one area/subarea.

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

TABLE 3.5 Distribution of Most-Cited Papers for 1985-1990 and 2000-2006 by Groups of Journals, Indicating Shifts in Direction and Emphasis for Various Subareas of Chemical Engineering

Journals

1985-1990

2000-2006

AIChE J., I&EC Research, Chemical Engineering Science

10

4

Science, Nature, PNAS

9

18

J. Chemical Physics, J. Physical Chemistry, Physical Review Letters, Physical Chemistry-Chemical Physics

13

8

Journal of the American Chemical Society, Accounts of Chem Res.

3

10

Analytical Chem., J. Electron Microscopy, J. Optical Society of America

5

0

Chemical Reviews, Molecular Physics, Fluid Phase Equilibria

5

3

Phys. Reviews Letters, J. Applied Physics, Applied Physics Letters

0

6

J. Catalysis, Advances in Catalysis, Surface Science, Catalysis Reviews, J. of Solid State Chemistry

6

2

Macromolecules, Polymer, J. Polymer Science, Polymer Science and Eng.

12

12

J. Fluid Mechanics, Annual Reviews of Fluid Mechanics, J. Rheology

6

0

Langmuir, J. Colloids and Interfacial Science

4

2

Cancer Research, J. National Cancer Institute

5

0

Biotechnology and Bioengineering

2

0

Nature Biotechnology

0

4

Advanced Materials, Chemistry of Materials

0

5

Biomaterials, Biomacromolecules

0

3

FIGURE 3.2 Percentage of journal articles with 200 or more citations, by region (e.g., 93% of all U.S. publications and 12% of all EU publications during 1980-1984 received more than 200 citations).

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

FIGURE 3.3 Percentage of journal articles with 100 or more citations, by region (e.g., 4% of all U.S. and 0.7% of all EU publications during 1980-1984 received more than 100 citations).

the four Asian countries with a relatively brief presence in the international chemical engineering arena.

3.2.c
Analysis of Publications and Citations from Journals with Broad Coverage of Chemical Engineering Themes

Three journals have become the main depositories of archival research contributions from a broad spectrum of chemical engineering activities across the world:

  • AIChE Journal, with a 2005 Impact Factor (IF)1 = 2.036

  • Chemical Engineering Science, with an Impact Factor = 1.735

  • Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, with an Impact Factor = 1.504

1

Impact Factor is defined as the number of citations to a journal’s published articles during the previous 2 years divided by the number of articles published in the journal.

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

FIGURE 3.4 Percentage of journal articles with 10 or more citations, by region. (e.g., 47% of all U.S. and 43% of all Asian publications during 1980-1984 received more than 10 citations).

Three others, Chemical Engineering Research and Design (IF = 0.792), Chemie Ingenieur Technik (IF = 0.392), and Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering (IF = 0.574), have a more geographically limited pool of contributions and significantly lesser impact on the leading developments in chemical engineering research. Consequently, our analysis of broadly based trends in research contributions that span the full range of chemical engineering interests were based on data from the first three journals and can be summarized as follows:

  • The number of papers contributed from U.S.-based researchers represents a decreasing fraction of all papers published in the three broad chemical engineering journals.

  • The fractions of papers contributed from European Union and Asian researchers have been increasing at an appreciable rate.

  • Although the U.S. still maintains a very healthy leadership position, the preeminence enjoyed by U.S. contributions during the 1980s (as depicted by the fraction of U.S. papers in the top 100 most-cited papers in each of the three journals) has been eroded.

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
  • Asian contributions are increasing in number and quality, closing the historical gaps quickly.

In the following paragraphs we present the detailed data for the three journals:

  • AIChE Journal: From Table 3.6 we note that the percentage contribution of published papers originating from researchers in U.S. institutions has been decreasing over the past 20 years, with contributions from the European Union and Asia taking up the difference. However, the U.S. maintains a strong leadership position when one examines the fractions of the top 100 most-cited papers generated by each region (Table 3.7). While the percentage of most-cited papers from the United States has been decreasing, the corresponding percentages of European Union and Asian (China, India, Korea, Taiwan) contributions have been increasing appreciably.

  • Chemical Engineering Science: Analogous trends are revealed by the analysis of the publications in Chemical Engineering Science:

    • The percentage of papers from U.S. authors has decreased over the past 20 years, the contributions from the European Union have

TABLE 3.6 Papers Published in AIChE Journal

 

1990-1994

1995-1999

2000-2006

No. of Papers

%

No. of Papers

%

No. of Papers

%

United States

666

63

786

52

799

43

European Union

132

13

306

20

515

28

Asia

86

8

182

12

312

17

Japan

32

3

68

4

79

4

Canada

59

6

86

6

73

4

South America

10

1

26

2

57

3

Other

67

6

67

4

36

2

Total Papers Published

1,052

 

1,521

 

1,871

 

TABLE 3.7 Distribution of the 100 Most-Cited Papers in AIChE Journal

 

1990-1994

1995-1999

2000-2006

United States

78

61

57

European Union

9

22

21

Asia

2

5

9

Japan

4

2

5

Canada

3

6

2

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

TABLE 3.8 Number of Papers Published in Chemical Engineering Science

 

1990-1994

1995-1999

2000-2006

No. of Papers

%

No. of Papers

%

No. of Papers

%

United States

608

30

570

23

670

19

European Union

703

35

975

40

1,306

38

Asia

237

12

383

16

771

22

Japan

54

3

97

4

183

5

Canada

142

7

157

6

228

7

South America

45

2

71

3

126

4

Other

230

11

207

8

160

5

Total Papers Published

2,019

 

2,460

 

3,444

 

remained the same level, and the number of papers from Asia has exhibited a marked increase (Table 3.8).

  • The U.S. percentage of the 100 most-cited papers (Figure 3.5) has decreased while the European Union percentage has remained at about the same level. However, citations for Asian papers have increased appreciably.

  • I&EC Research: The data from I&EC Research (Table 3.9 and Figure 3.6) reveal a similar picture:

    • The percentage of papers from the United States has been decreasing, while the percentages of contributions from the European Union and Asia have been increasing.

    • The percentages of most-cited papers from the United States has been on the decline, but it still maintains a very healthy leadership position. However, the gap is being closed by an increase in the percentages of most-cited papers from the European Union and Asia.

As the percentage of U.S. contributions to the mainstream chemical engineering journals has been decreasing over the past 20 years, certain core areas of chemical engineering have been affected especially hard. For example, if we define

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

FIGURE 3.5 Distribution of the top 100 most-cited papers in Chemical Engineering Science.

TABLE 3.9 Number of Papers Published in I&EC Research

 

1990-1994

1995-1999

2000-2006

No. of Papers

%

No. of Papers

%

No. of Papers

%

United States

860

47

1,139

39

1,705

32

European Union

359

20

707

24

1,448

27

Asia

291

16

497

17

1,183

22

Japan

136

7

168

6

299

6

Canada

93

5

193

7

318

6

South America

38

2

92

3

279

5

Other

49

3

99

4

41

2

Total Papers Published

1,829

 

2,895

 

5,273

 

then analysis of the data from the three journals indicates that

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

FIGURE 3.6 Distribution of the top 100 most-cited papers in I&EC Research.

In other words, the representation of U.S. contributions in the above five core areas has been reduced over the past 10 years by a relative factor between 1.5 and 3.0.

3.2.d
Analysis of Publications and Citations from Journals with Contributions from Several Disciplines

While the percentage of U.S. research contributions in broadly based chemical engineering journals has been decreasing and European Union and Asian contributions take up a larger share, chemical engineering researchers in the United States have been increasing their presence in scientific journals with contributions from many disciplines, such as Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. These are journals with significantly higher impact factors, indicating that U.S. researchers are expanding their reach into areas of science and engineering of increasingly multidisciplinary interest.

In the following paragraphs we present the results of the analysis of data from these three journals:

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
  • SCIENCE: Table 3.10 indicates that contributions from chemical engineers worldwide have increased by a factor of nearly 2, from the 1990-1994 to the 2000-2006 period. A closer look at the number of chemical engineering contributions during the past 5 to 6 years (Figure 3.7) indicates that the doubling of contributions actually occurred during this period. This surge has been led by U.S. chemical engineering researchers, who have contributed 95% of these papers. This is a very strong indicator that the U.S.

TABLE 3.10 Number of Research Papers (Articles) Published in Science

 

1990-1994

1995-1999

2000-2006

No. of Papers

%

No. of Papers

%

No. of Papers

%

Total No. of Papers

4,711

 

4,985

 

5,831

 

Total No. of Chem. Eng. Papers

51

1

72

1

106

2

U.S., Chem. Eng.

48

95

68

94

101

95

EU, Chem. Eng.

6

11

9

13

19

18

Asia, Chem. Eng.

0

0

3

4

11

10

Canada, Chem. Eng.

0

0

1

1

1

1

S. America, Chem. Eng.

0

0

2

3

2

2

Internationalization (overlap)

 

5

 

15

 

26

FIGURE 3.7 Percentage of papers in Science with chemical engineering co-authorship.

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

chemical engineering researchers have been leading the exploration of new frontiers and opportunities at the interface with other disciplines. While the percentage of papers that originated from chemical engineering researchers is still low (about 2%), it is nevertheless quite remarkable, given the tremendous competition from other disciplines and the relatively smaller number of chemical engineering researchers.

  • PNAS: The trends in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences publications (Tables 3.11 and 3.12) are similar to those observed in Science, namely an increasing fractional representation of chemical engineering contributions, with a dominant percentage of those contributions coming from the United States.

TABLE 3.11 Number of Papers Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

 

1990-1994

1995-1999

2000-2006

No. of Papers

%

No. of Papers

%

No. of Papers

%

Total No. of Papers

11,814

 

13,053

 

18,100

 

Total No. of Chem. Eng. Papers

46

0.39

82

1

181

1

U.S., Chem. Eng.

46

100

79

96

175

97

EU, Chem. Eng.

1

2

4

5

17

9

Asia, Chem. Eng.

1

2

3

4

12

7

Canada, Chem. Eng.

1

2

2

2

3

2

S. America, Chem. Eng.

0

0

0

0

2

10

Internationalization (overlap)

 

7

 

7

 

15

TABLE 3.12 Number of Papers Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the Past 6 Years

 

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

Total No. of Papers

2,484

2,468

2,680

2,803

2,909

2,847

Total No. of U.S. Papers

1,868

1,872

2,007

2,166

2,170

2,172

% of U.S. Papers

75.20

75.85

74.89

77.27

74.60

76.29

Total No. of Chemical Eng. Papers

11

23

19

29

31

35

% of Chemical Eng. Papers

0.44

0.93

0.71

1.03

1.07

1.23

Total No. of U.S. Chemical Eng. Papers

10

22

19

28

31

34

% of U.S. Papers Among Chemical Eng. Papers

90.91

95.65

100.00

96.55

100.00

97.14

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
  • Nature: Chemical engineering contributions during the past 10 years have doubled in number (from 25 in 1990-1994 to nearly 50 in 2000-2006) but their fraction of the total has increased only a little (51% in 1990-1994 to 68% in 2000-2006). More than 90% of the chemical engineering contributions come from U.S. researchers.

3.2.e
Analysis of Publications and Citations in Area-Specific Journals

U.S. chemical engineering researchers have been publishing in a long list of journals spanning a very broad range of specific subjects. Depending on the specific area of interest, the contributions of U.S. chemical engineers have varied from 1% (for subareas such as control) to 20% (for subareas such as transport, thermodynamics, catalysis) of the papers published in area-specific journals. Tables 3.13 and 3.14 provide a partial view of the present situation (Appendix 3B lists all the subarea-specific journals whose publications were analyzed). We will not draw any conclusions here from

TABLE 3.13 Chemical Engineering Contributions in Area-Specific Journals (numbers are percentages of papers contributed from chemical engineering researchers in the corresponding journal)

Journal

1990-1994

1995-1999

2000-2006

Total Chem. Eng.

U.S. Chem. Eng.

Total Chem. Eng.

U.S. Chem. Eng.

Total Chem. Eng.

U.S. Chem. Eng.

Fluid Mechanics; Physics of Fluids

7.9

6.9

8.3

7.1

7.8

5.8

Fluid Phase Equilibria; J. Chemical Thermodynamics

27.9

11.2

29.5

9.9

28.8

6.8

Molecular Simulation

14.9

8.5

8.6

6.4

16.4

15.7

J. of Chemical Physics; and J. Physical Chemistry B

7.3

7.0

5.6

5.0

3.8

3.2

J. Catalysis; Applied Catalysis-A and B

21.0

8.4

25.5

12.6

29.5

17.8

Polymer

16.5

5.9

14.5

5.3

10.3

6.2

Progress in Polymer Science

5.5

1.7

3.4

1.3

5.3

0.8

Macromolecules

16.6

10.9

13.5

10.1

11.3

9.3

Metabolic Engineering (2002-06)

 

 

 

 

36.7

29.1

Enzyme and Microbial Technology

16.0

1.9

15.8

1.8

14.1

6.2

AUTOMATICA

3.5

1.7

4.1

1.9

 

 

IEEE Transaction on Automatic Control

0.8

0.5

1.2

1.0

1.2

1

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

TABLE 3.14 Chemical Engineering Contributions in Area-Specific Journals (partial list)

Journal

1995-2006

Chem. Eng. (% of published papers)

U.S. Chem. Eng. (% of published papers)

J. of Rheology

30-50

15-20

J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics

20-30

9-12

Rheological Acta

25-35

10-12

International Journal of Multiphase Flow

10-12

3-5

Powder Technology

25-30

8-10

Catalysis Today

15-25

3-5

J. Applied Electrochemistry

15-20

2-3

Proteins: Structure, Function and Bioinformatics

1-2

0.90-1.4

Protein Science

2-4

~ (2-4)

Langmuir

15-20

5-10

J. Colloid and Interface Science

15-20

10-15

Advanced Materials

5-15

5-10

Chemistry of Materials

5-10

6-8

J. American Ceramic Society

2-6

2-5

Polymer Composites

10-20

5-10

Nano Letters

6-8

~ (6-8)

J. Controlled Release

8-10

7.5-9.5

Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews

3-5

~ (3-5)

Pharmaceutical Research

2-5

~ (2-5)

J. Biomaterials Science: Polymer Edition

15-25

8-12

Biomacromolecules

8-10

7-9

J. Biomedical Materials Research

7-10

5-9

Lab-on-a-Chip

7-9

6.5-8.5

Combustion and Flame

5-10

2-3

Fuel

20-25

3-5

Combustion Science and Technology

3-8

2-4

Combustion Theory and Modeling

4-8

2-4

Environmental Science and Technology

5-8

3-4

J. Environmental Engineering

4-10

2-6

Aerosol Science and Technology

10-20

7-15

J. Aerosol Science

5-12

2-6

SIAM Journal on Optimization

~ 1

~ 1

SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing

1-2

1-2

Optimization and Engineering

5-15

4.8-14.5

Mathematical Programming

0.8-1.0

0.9-1.0

J. Optimization Theory and Applications

0.5

0.5

J. Global Optimization

3.5-4.0

3.4-3.9

INFORMS J. on Computing

0.5

0.5

Annals of Operations Research

1

1

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

these data, because the sections in Chapter 4 will provide a more detailed analysis of the publication trends in specific subareas and will describe the relative position of U.S. contributions versus those of other geographic regions.

3.3
PATENT PUBLICATION ANALYSIS

Chemical sciences and engineering have resulted in the most enabling science/technology combination to underpin technology development in every industrial sector, as a study sponsored by the Council for Chemical Research (CCR) has revealed.2 Indeed, as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office data in the CCR report indicate, each industry builds on chemical technology as prior art. Furthermore, the CCR study has found that chemical companies with highly cited patents have stronger financial performance than companies with lower impact patents; their stock prices, operating revenues, and profits are 35%-60% higher, on average. Additionally, companies that invest in high-quality technology that continues to influence the technological directions of the chemical industry have the most favorable financial performance.

All of the above observations have a direct linkage with the capacity of the U.S. chemical engineering research enterprise to deliver scientific results for high-quality patents and produce first-rate human resources. In this section we will examine the competitiveness of U.S. chemical engineering research in producing technological knowledge for patents with high impact.

Clearly, a complete and authoritative study linking U.S. research in chemical engineering to high-impact patents, where impact is measured by the financial performance of the chemical companies driven by these patents, is an overwhelming task and beyond the charge of this panel. Most of the necessary information for such study cannot be disaggregated from financial results, which in their raw form are not available to the general public. Therefore, the Panel opted to generate indirect evidence by asking the following questions:

  • What is the productivity of U.S. chemical engineering departments in generating patents and how does it compare to the productivity of non-U.S. research institutions?

  • What is the impact of U.S. academic chemical engineering research in the formation of industrial patents? How does it compare to the impact of non-U.S. chemical engineering research?

2

Council for Chemical Research. “Measure for measure: Chemical R&D powers the US innovation engine,” 2005.

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
  • What is the competitiveness of the U.S. industrial research in generating high-impact patents?

By themselves, the answers to these questions are of little significance, but when taken together with the other metrics used in this study, e.g., publications, citations, and the VWC, they can contribute to a better-rounded overall assessment of the U.S. competitiveness in chemical engineering research.

3.3.a
Patent Productivity of U.S. Chemical Engineering Departments

In 2003 approximately twice as many patents (3,259) in all fields were awarded to all U.S. universities and colleges as in 1994 (1,783).3 The total for the 10-year period is 27,594 (16,545 to public and 10,321 to private institutions). Similar trends have been observed in chemical engineering.

Data from five U.S. chemical engineering departments, with significant numbers of patents awarded, indicate that they produced from 2 to 7.5 patents per active research faculty over a period of 20 years, leading to an index of 0.1 to 0.38 patents per active research faculty per year. These numbers indicate that the following:

  • Patent productivity of active chemical engineering departments is comparable to that in chemistry (0.25 patents per faculty per year; data from three high-ranking chemistry departments) and materials science and engineering (0.35 patents per faculty per year; data from three high-ranking departments).

  • Before 1995-2000, patent productivity of non-U.S. chemical engineering departments had been very low, due to a lack of well-organized Technology Licensing Offices (TLO) within non-U.S. universities. Since 2000 the number of non-U.S. universities with well-organized and purposeful TLOs has increased substantially, especially in Japan and Western Europe. A sample of two European Union and two Japanese chemical engineering departments, all with excellent reputations for academic research, indicated that the corresponding index values are 0.05 to 0.1 patents per faculty per year, significantly lower than that of the active U.S. departments.

3.3.b
Impact of Academic U.S. Chemical Engineering Research on Industrial Patents

To study the impact of academic chemical engineering research on industrial patents, the Panel collected the following data:

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
  • references of prior art in all of the patents of two major U.S. chemical companies for the years 1995, 2000, and 2005

  • references of prior art in a sample of 500 patents from five chemical companies (three from the United States, one from Europe and one from Japan) awarded by the U.S. Patent Office during the period 1995-2003

The set of seven companies represented commodity production and specialty chemicals and materials production. No pharmaceutical companies were included in the set. The groups of patents examined covered both material structure and process patents.

The results from the analysis of the data are as follows:

  • The percentage of patents with at least one reference to a publication in a scientific journal (i.e., an indication of linkage to academic research) varied from 12% to 60%, with the higher percentage indicating a patent with higher scientific linkage.

  • The percentage of references to scientific journals over the total number of references to prior art varied from 12% to 20%.

  • The percentage of references to published chemical engineering papers over the total number of scientific references varied from 4% to 11%.

  • The percentage of references to U.S.-originated chemical engineering publications over the total number of references to all chemical engineering publications varied from 45% to 70%.

The limited size of the analyzed set of patents notwithstanding, the above numbers suggest the following conclusions:

  • Publications of academic chemical engineering research appear with a frequency of 1 in 9 to 1 in 25 scientific references of the industrial patents examined.

  • The dominance of U.S. chemical engineering publications, among all chemical engineering publications, in shaping industrial patents is quite clear; 1 in 2 to 2 in 3 references are for U.S.-originated publications. This is in agreement with the strong presence of U.S. publications in the lists of the most-cited papers, discussed in Section 3.2.

We should clearly recognize that the above analysis has been based on sets of patents awarded by the U.S. Patent Office and as such the results will undoubtedly be somewhat biased. Patents issued by, for example, the Japanese Patent Office may show a different picture. However, most of the high-impact patents filed and awarded by patent offices around the world

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

are also filed in the United States through patent, trademark, and copyright mechanisms. Therefore, the above results are quite credible as representative of existing trends.

3.3.c
Competitiveness of U.S. Industrial Research in Generating High-Impact Patents

It is not the purpose of this paragraph to provide a detailed account of the U.S. competitive patent position across the various segments of the chemical industry. Instead, the panel wanted to examine whether the significant strength of the U.S. academic chemical engineering research enterprise (e.g., composition of the VWC, publications, and citations) was reflected in the strength of U.S. industrial research, manifested by strong and differentiating intellectual property position.

First, we note that data on patents in the CCR study, “Measure for Measure: Chemical R&D Powers the U.S. Innovation Engine,” indicate that the impact of U.S.-invented chemical technology patenting (number of citations) has risen steadily, in contrast to the declining impact of Japanese-invented chemical technology patents and the steady but relatively lower impact of German-invented chemical patents.

Second, data were collected for the geographic origins of inventors of patents awarded by the U.S. Patent Office during the period 1985-2005 for a few selected areas of chemical engineering related technological research. The percentages of U.S.-invented patents are shown in Table 3.15.

From the table below it is clear that U.S. companies are in a leadership position in generating intellectual property, but it is also clear that there has been a worrisome decline in the U.S. percentage of generated patents over the past 20 years. U.S. chemical companies have recognized this development and are stepping up their efforts in intellectual property generation.

Furthermore, Table 3.16 summarizes the percentages of U.S. patents awarded to U.S., European, and Asian companies in the areas of industrial

TABLE 3.15 Percentages of U.S.-Invented Patents, Awarded by the U.S. Patent Office, in Various Areas of Research

Area of Research

1985-1989

1990-1994

1995-1999

2000-2005

Heterogeneous Catalysts

80

60

45

40

Homogeneous Catalysts

55

60

50

45

Polymerization

55

50

41

51

Fluid Flow Related

80

62

46

42

Fermentations

60

52

55

53

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

TABLE 3.16 Percentages of Patents, Awarded by the U.S. Patent Office, to U.S., EU, and Asian Assignees in Three Areas of Chemical Industry for the Years 1995, 2000, and 2005

Area of Technology

1995

2000

2004

U.S.

EU

Asia

U.S.

EU

Asia

U.S.

EU

Asia

Industrial Separations

55

31

14

53

29

18

56

26

19

Composites

60

13

27

53

18

30

54

18

28

Ceramics

51

22

27

48

22

30

49

18

33

separations, composites, and ceramic materials. These data show a strong U.S. intellectual property position in all three areas of technology.

3.4
PRIZES, AWARDS, AND RECOGNITIONS

There are no international prizes or awards, which recognize research contributions in chemical engineering at large, akin to the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Therefore, we cannot use this metric for a direct comparison of U.S. versus non-U.S. contributions in chemical engineering.

However, there is a series of international awards and prizes recognizing research contributions in specific subareas of chemical engineering. In addition, there are national awards open to foreign contestants from several disciplines. The Panel has collected data on the winners for a number of such awards in an effort to assess U.S. leadership in specific subareas of chemical engineering research across disciplines and across geographic regions.

The data suggest the following conclusions:

  • U.S. chemical engineering researchers have received a significant number of prestigious awards with international competition over a broad range of research subareas; fluid mechanics, catalysis, controlled drug release, bioprocesses, aerosol science and engineering, rheology, reaction engineering, combustion, and materials. These awards seem to confirm earlier observations that breadth and depth (quality) co-exist in U.S. chemical engineering research.

  • U.S. chemical engineering researchers have been very competitive with researchers from other disciplines, drawing a significant number of U.S. awards in all subareas of chemical engineering from various disciplinary organizations. Again this information confirms earlier observations on the interdisciplinary competitiveness of U.S. chemical engineering researchers.

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

3.5
SUMMARY

The analyses in the previous sections has largely been confined to macroscopic trends and assessment of U.S. research in chemical engineering at large. In Chapter 4 each subarea of chemical engineering research is assessed separately, using the same metrics.

Using the results of the overall assessment, discussed in earlier sections of this chapter, as well as the summary overview for all subareas, given in Table 4.45 and discussed in detail in Chapter 4, we can draw the following conclusions regarding the state of U.S. chemical engineering research at large:

  • Conclusion 1: It has enjoyed a preeminent position for the past 50 years and is still at the “Forefront” or “Among the World Leaders” in every subarea of chemical engineering research.

  • Conclusion 2: For the last 10 years it has been facing increased competition from European Union and Asian countries, both in terms of volume of research output as well as quality and impact. Although the percentage of U.S. publications has decreased substantially, the quality and impact still remain very high. It is anticipated that competition will further increase in the future due to globalization and growth of competing economies.

  • Conclusion 3: It has been losing ground in the core areas of chemical engineering (transport processes, thermodynamics, kinetics and reaction engineering, and process systems engineering), which raises concern for its capacity to maintain a sufficient number of highly skilled researchers in these areas.

  • Conclusion 4: It has been moving away from the core research areas of the discipline and is increasingly focusing its attention on subjects of interdisciplinary interest at the interface with applied sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics) and other engineering disciplines. Within the scope of these interdisciplinary research activities, it is clearly at the “Forefront,” leading the output (volume and quality) of worldwide chemical engineering research.

  • Conclusion 5: It has been generating an increasing number of patents with continuously increasing commercial impact. Patent productivity of U.S. academic chemical engineering researchers is significantly higher than that of researchers in other countries, and has reached rough parity with that of U.S. chemistry and materials science and engineering. Also, its relative impact on industrial patents has increased.

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

APPENDIX 3A
Experts Who Organized the Virtual World Congress by Nominating Its Keynote Speakers

EXPERT (VWC Organizer)

AFFILIATION

Agassant, Jean-Francois

ENSMP (France)

Agrawal, Rakesh

Purdue University

Aizenberg, Joanna

Alcatel-Lucent Technologies

Allen, David

University of Texas-Austin

Anseth, Kristi

University of Colorado

Arastopour, Hamid

Illinois Institute of Technology

Arendt, Steve

ABS Consulting

Arkin, Adam

LBNL/UC Berkeley

Arnold, Frances

California Institute of Technology

Athanassiou, Kyriacos

Rice University

Avidan, Amos

Bechtel, USA

Azapagic, Adisa

University of Surrey (UK)

Baer, Eric

Case Western Reserve University

Bakshi, Bhavik

Ohio State University

Barteau, Mark

University of Delaware

Basaran, Osman

Purdue University

Bashir, Rashid

Purdue University

Bates, Frank

University of Minnesota

Baxter, Larry

Brigham Young University

Beer, Janos

MIT

Bell, Alexis T.

UC Berkeley

Berger, Scott

AIChE

Betenbaugh, Michael

Johns Hopkins University

Bizios, Rena

University of Texas-San Antonio

Blanch, Harvey

UC Berkeley

Blankschtein, Daniel

MIT

Blau, Gary

Purdue University

Blum, Frank

University of Missouri-Rolla

Bonvin, Dominique

EPF Lausanne

Bowman, Chris

University of Colorado

Brannon-Peppas, Lisa

University of Texas-Austin

Brinker, Jeffrey

Sandia National Labs

Buttrey, Douglas

University of Delaware

Cairns, Elton

LBNL/UC Berkeley

Caram, Hugo

Lehigh University

Carberry, John

Dupont

Chakraborty, Arup

MIT

Chen, Bingzhen

Tsinghua University

Chmelka, Bradley

UC Santa Barbara

Chornet, Esteban

Usherbrooke (Canada)

Chum, Stepen

Dow Chemical

Clift, Roland

Surrey University, UK

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

EXPERT (VWC Organizer)

AFFILIATION

Coates, Geoff

Cornell University

Cohen, Yoram

UCLA

Cooper, Stuart

Ohio State University

Coppens, Marc-Olivier

Technische Universiteit Delft

Corn, John

Ohio State University

Couvreur, Patrick

University of Paris

Crowl, Dan Michigan

Technological University

Dal Pont, Jean-Pierre

ESPCI (France)

D’Alessio, Antonio

University of Naples

Dam-Johansen, Kim

DTU (Denmark)

Davis, Mark

California Institute of Technology

Dealy, John

McGill University (Canada)

Debenedetti, Pablo

Princeton University

Denn, Morton

City College of New York

dePablo, Juan

University of Wisconsin

deSmedt, Stefaan

University of Ghent

DiSalvo, Frank

Cornell University

Dixit, Ravi

Engineering and Process Sciences

Doherty, Michael

UC Santa Barbara

Dordick, Jonathan

RPI

Drzal, Lawrence

Michigan State University

Dudukovic, Michael

Washington University

Dumesic, James

University of Wisconsin

Eckert, Charles

Georgia Tech

Edgar, Thomas

University of Texas-Austin

Edwards, David

Harvard University

Eldridge, Bruce

University of Texas-Austin

Fan, L.S.

Ohio State University

Feinberg, Martin

Ohio State University

Floudas, Christodoulos

Princeton University

Flytzani-Stephanopoulos, Miretta

Tufts University

Forrest, Stephen

University of Michigan

Francis, Lorraine

University of Minnesota

Frank, Timothy

Dow Chemical

Fredrickson, Glenn

UC Santa Barbara

Friedlander, Sheldon K.

UCLA

Froment, Gilbert

Texas A&M

Fuller, Gerry

Stanford University

Gani, Rafique

Technical University of Denmark

Gasteiger, Hubert

University Duesseldorf

Genzer, Jan

North Carolina State University

Georgiou, George

University of Texas-Austin

Gandhi, Harendra

Ford Motor Co

Glaborg, Peter

DTU (Denmark)

Gladden, Lynn

Cambridge University

Goodenough, John

University of Texas-Austin

Gooding, Charles

Clemson University

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

EXPERT (VWC Organizer)

AFFILIATION

Gorte, Raymond

University of Pennsylvania

Gottesfeld, Shimshon

MTI MicroFuel Cells Inc.

Graham, Mike

University of Wisconsin

Green, Don

University of Kansas

Grossmann, Ignacio

Carnegie Mellon University

Gschwend, Philip M.

MIT

Gubbins, Keith

North Carolina State University

Hall, Carol

North Carolina State University

Haller, Gary

Yale University

Hammond, Paula

MIT

Hangleiter, Andreas

Technische Universitat Braunschweig

Harold, Michael

University of Houston

Hawker, Craig

UC Santa Barbara

Haynes, Brian

University of Sydney (Australia)

Haynes, Charles

University of British Columbia (Canada)

Hendershot, Dennis

Chilworth Technology

Heuer, Arthur

Case Western Reserve University

Hidy, George

Envair/Aerochem

Hill, Michael

University of Massachusetts

Hilt, J. Zach

University of Kentucky

Hines, Melissa

Cornell University

Hoo, Karlene

Texas Tech University

Howard, Jack B.

MIT

Hubbell, Jeffrey

Ecole Polytech Fed Lausanne

Iglesia, Enrique

UC Berkeley

Israelachvili, Jacob

UC Santa Barbara

Jachuck, Roshan

Clarkson University

Jain, Pradeep

University of Florida

Jimenez, Jose

Luis University of Colorado

Johansen, Kim

Dam Technical University of Denmark

Johnston, Keith

University of Texas-Austin

Jorne, Jacob

University of Rochester

Kauppinen, Esko I.

Helsinki University of Technology (Finland)

Keasling, Jay

UC Berkeley

Khakar, Devang

Vipin Indian Institute of Technology

Khan, Saad

North Carolina State University

Kletz, Trevor

Loughborough University (UK)

Klibanov, Alexander

MIT

Klimov, Victor

LANL

Kohlbrand, Henry

Dow Chemical

Konstantinov, Konstantin

Bayer Corp

Kopecek, Jindrich

University of Utah

Krishnamoorti, Ramanan

University of Houston

Ladisch, Mike

Purdue University

Lahti, Paul

University of Massachusetts

Lange, Frederick

UC Santa Barbara

Langer, Robert

MIT

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

EXPERT (VWC Organizer)

AFFILIATION

Larsen, John

Penn State University

Laurencin, Cato

University of Virginia

Leal, Gary

UC Santa Barbara

Lee, Kelvin

Cornell University

Lee, L. James

Ohio State University

Lee, Sang

Yup KAIST

Lee, Vincent

FDA

Lesko, Jack

Virginia Polytechnic Institute

Lewis, Jennifer A.

University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

Liao, James

UCLA

Linninger, Andreas

University of Illinois

Lips, Alexander

Unilever

Liu, Jun

PNNL

Loy, Doug

University of Arizona

Luss, Dan

University of Houston

Macosko, Chris

University of Minnesota

Madix, Robert

Stanford University

Maggioli, Victor

Feltronics Corp.

Mallapragada, Surya

Iowa State University

Mallouk, Tom

Penn State University

Malone, Michael

University of Massachusetts

Maranas, Costas

Penn State University

Marinan, Mark

Dow Chemical

Mark, J.E.

University of Cincinnati

Marlin, Tom

McMaster University

Marquardt, Wolfgang

RWTH-Aachen

Marrucci, Guiseppe

University of Naples (Italy)

McAvoy, Tom

University of Maryland

McCarty, Perry L.

Stanford University

McCormick, Alon V.

University of Minnesota

McLeish, TCB

University of Leeds (UK)

Meyer, Anne

SUNY Buffalo

Michaels, James N.

Merck and Co.

Mikos, Antonios

Rice University

Mitragotri, Samir

UC Santa Barbara

Mooney, David

Harvard University

Morari, Manfred

ETH Zurich (Switzerland)

Mortensen, Andreas

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

Mudan, Krishna

MSA Risk Consulting

Narasimhan, Balaji

Iowa State University

Nauman, Bruce

RPI

Ni, Xiong-Wei

Heriot-Watt University (UK)

Nielsen, Jens

Technical University of Denmark

Nienow, Alvin

University of Birmingham

Norris, David

University of Minnesota

Ober, Chris

Cornell University

Ogunnaike, Tunde

University of Delaware

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

EXPERT (VWC Organizer)

AFFILIATION

Okano, Teruo

Tokyo Women's Medical College (Japan)

Overton, Tim

Dow Chemical

Ozin, Geoffrey

University of Toronto (Canada)

Palsson, Bernhard

UC San Diego

Panagiotopoulos, Athanassios

Princeton University

Pandis, Spyros

Carnegie Mellon University

Papoutsakis, Terry

Northwestern University

Paul, Don

University of Texas-Austin

Pearson, Ray

Lehigh University

Pekny, Joe

Purdue University

Pendergast, John Jr.

Dow Chemical

Penlidis, Alexander

University of Waterloo

Peper, Jody

University of Minnesota

Peppas, Nicholas

University of Texas-Austin

Pereira, Carmo

DuPont

Petrie, Jim

University of Sydney (Australia)

Pistikopoulos, Stratos

Imperial College (UK)

Ponton, Jack

University of Edinburgh (Scotland)

Pratsinis, Sotiris

E. ETH Zurich (Switzerland)

Prausnitz, John

LBNL/UC Berkeley

Prud’homme, Robert

Princeton University

Rao, Govind

University of Maryland-Baltimore

Ray, W. Harmon

University of Wisconsin

Register, Richard

Princeton University

Reklaitis, Gintaras

Purdue University

Richon, Dominque

CEP/TEP, ENSMP (France)

Rochelle, Gary

University of Texas-Austin

Russel, William

Princeton University

Russell, Alan

University of Pittsburgh

Sandler, Stan

University of Delaware

Schaak, Raymond

Texas A&M University

Schaffer, David

UC Berkeley

Schowalter, William

Princeton University

Schuth, Ferdi

MPI für Kohlenforschung (Germany)

Scranton, Alec

University of Iowa

Seal, Sudipta

University of Central Florida

Seborg, Dale

UC Santa Barbara

Sefton, Michael

University of Toronto (Canada)

Sehanobish, Kalyan

Dow Automotive

Seinfeld, John

California Institute of Technology

Shafi, Asjad

Dow Chemical

Shah, Nilay

Imperial College (UK)

Shirtum, Page

RPS Engineering

Shuler, Mike

Cornell University

Siddall, Jon

Dow Chemical

Sidkar, Subhas

NMRL, EPA

Sierka, Raymond

University of Arizona

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

EXPERT (VWC Organizer)

AFFILIATION

Siirola, Jeff

Eastman Chemical Co.

Sinclair Curtis, Jennifer

University of Florida

Smith, Philip

University of Utah

Smith, Robin

University of Manchester

Spannangel, Mary Anne

University of Illinois

Stephanopoulos, Gregory

MIT

Stone, Howard

Harvard University

Stadther, Mark

University of Notre Dame

Stucky, Galen

UC Santa Barbara

Stupp, Sam

Northwestern University

Sundaresan, Sankaran

Princeton University

Teja, Amyn

Georgia Tech

Tester, Jefferson

MIT

Thibodeaux, Louis

Louisiana State University

Tirrell, David

California Institute of Technology

Tirrell, Matthew

UC Santa Barbara

Towler, Gavin

UOP (USA)

Vaia, Rich

AFRL

Varma, Arvind

Purdue University

Vayenas, Constantinos G.

University of Patras

Velev, Orlin

North Carolina State University

Virkar, Anil

University of Utah

Wall, Terry

University of Newcastle

Wandrey, Christian

Institute of Biotechnology (Germany)

Wang, Danny

MIT

Wang, Zhen-Gang

California Institute of Technology

Wassick, John

Dow Chemical

Webb, Colin

University of Manchester

Weber, W.J. Jr.

University of Michigan

Wei, James

Princeton University

Weinberg, W. Henry

UC Santa Barbara

Weitz, David

Harvard University

Wender, Irving

University of Cape Town (South Africa)

Wendt, Jost

University of Utah

West, David

Dow Chemical

West, Jennifer

Rice University

Westerberg, Arthur

Carnegie Mellon University

Westmoreland, Phillip

University of Massachusetts

White, Ralph E.

University of Southern California

Whitesides, George

Harvard University

Wilson, Grant

University of Texas-Austin

Winey, Karen

University of Pennsylvania

Wittrup, Dane

MIT

Xia, Younan

Washington University

Yager, Paul

University of Washington

Yang, Hong

University of Rochester

Yang, Ralph

University of Michigan

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

EXPERT (VWC Organizer)

AFFILIATION

Zaks, Alex

Schering-Plough

Zasadzinski, Joseph

UC Santa Barbara

Zhao, Huimin

University of Illinois

Zheng, Zhipling

University of Arizona

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

APPENDIX 3B
The List of Journals Examined for Publications and Citations

No.

Journal

2005 Impact Factor

Journals with Broad Coverage of Sciences and Engineering

1

Science

30.927

2

Nature

29.273

3

Proceedings of the National Academy of Science

10.231

4

Physical Review Letters

7.489

5

Journal of the American Chemical Society

7.419

Journals with Broad Coverage of Chemical Engineering Research

6

AIChE Journal

2.036

7

Chemical Engineering Science

1.735

8

Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research

1.504

9

Chemical Engineering Research and Design

0.792

10

Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering

0.574

11

Chemie Ingenieur Technik

0.392

Area-1: Engineering Science of Physical Processes

12

Journal of Physical Chemistry B

4.033

13

Journal of Chemical Physics

3.138

14

Journal of Membrane Science

2.654

15

Journal of Rheology

2.423

16

Journal of Fluid Mechanics

2.061

17

Journal of Colloid and Interface Science

2.023

18

Separation and Purification Technology

1.752

19

Separation and Purification Review

1.571

20

Granular Matter

1.517

21

Fluid Phase Equilibria

1.478

22

Rheologica Acta

1.432

23

Journal of Chemical Thermodynamics

1.398

24

Molecular Simulation

1.345

25

International Journal of Multiphase Flow

1.306

26

Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics

1.268

27

Powder Technology

1.219

28

Separation Science and Technology

0.834

Area-2: Engineering Science of Chemical Processes

29

Angewandte Chemie (International Edition)

9.596

30

Journal of Catalysis

4.780

31

Macromolecules

4.024

32

Applied Catalysis-B

3.809

33

Journal of Polymer Science Part A: Polymer Chemistry

3.027

34

Journal of Power Sources

2.770

35

Applied Catalysis-A

2.728

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

No.

Journal

2005 Impact Factor

36

Electrochimica Acta

2.453

37

Catalysis Today

2.365

38

Journal of the Electrochemical Society

2.190

39

Solid State Ionics

1.571

40

Journal of Applied Electrochemistry

1.282

41

International Journal of Chemical Kinetics

1.188

42

Surface and Interface Analysis

0.918

43

Journal of Polymer Engineering

0.312

44

Studies in Surface Science and Catalysis

0.307

Area-3: Engineering Science of Biological Processes

45

Nature Biotechnology

22.738

46

Bioinformatics

6.019

47

Proteins: Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics

4.684

48

Applied and Environmental Microbiology

3.818

49

Protein Science

3.618

50

Metabolic Engineering

2.484

51

Biotechnology & Bioengineering

2.483

52

Biotechnology Progress

1.985

53

Process Biochemistry

1.796

54

Enzyme and Microbial Technology

1.705

55

Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering

0.807

Area-4: Molecular and Interfacial Science and Engineering

56

Journal of Physical Chemistry B

4.033

57

Langmuir

3.705

58

Journal of Colloid and Interface Science

2.023

59

Colloids and Surfaces B

1.588

60

Colloids and Surfaces A

1.499

Area-5: Materials

61

Progress in Polymer Science

16.045

62

Nature Materials

15.941

63

Nano Letters

9.847

64

Advanced Materials

9.107

65

Advanced Functional Materials

6.770

66

Chemistry of Materials

4.818

67

Inorganic Chemistry

3.851

68

Acta Materialia

3.430

69

Polymer

2.849

70

Composites Science and Technology

2.184

71

Journal of Materials Research

2.104

72

Journal of Polymer Science Part B: Polymer Physics

1.739

73

Journal of the American Ceramic Society

1.586

74

Journal of the European Ceramic Society

1.567

75

Materials Research Bulletin

1.380

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

No.

Journal

2005 Impact Factor

76

Polymer Engineering and Science

1.076

77

Composite Structures

0.953

78

Journal of Materials Science

0.901

79

Journal of Ceramic Society of Japan

0.749

80

Polymer Composites

0.628

81

Inorganic Materials.

0.387

82

Journal of Polymer Engineering

0.312

Area-6: Biomedical Products and Biomaterials

83

Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews

7.189

84

Biomaterials

4.698

85

Journal of Controlled Release

3.696

86

Biomacromolecules

3.618

87

Journal of Orthopaedic Research

2.916

88

Tissue Engineering

2.887

89

Pharmaceutical Research

2.752

90

Journal of Biomedical Materials Research

2.743

91

European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences

2.347

92

Annals of Biomedical Engineering

1.997

93

Journal of Biomaterials Science, Polymer Edition

1.409

94

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine

1.248

Area-7: Energy

95

Carbon

3.419

96

Progress in Energy and Combustion Science

3.371

97

Combustion and Flame

2.258

98

Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

2.002

99

Fuel

1.674

100

Energy and Fuel

1.494

101

Fuel Process Technology

1.171

102

SPE Journal

0.816

103

Combustion Science and Technology

0.774

104

Proceedings Combustion Institute

0

Area-8: Environmental Impact and Management

105

Environmental Science and Technology

4.054

106

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

3.495

107

Water Research

3.019

108

Journal of Geophysical Research

2.784

109

Atmospheric Environment

2.724

110

Tellus B

2.592

111

Journal of Aerosol Science

2.477

112

Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry

2.414

113

Chemosphere

2.297

114

Journal of Atmospheric Science

2.078

115

Water Resources Research

1.939

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×

No.

Journal

2005 Impact Factor

116

Aerosol Science and Technology

1.935

117

Journal of Contaminant Hydrology

1.733

118

Ground Water

1.419

119

Journal of Nanoparticle Research

1.699

120

Journal of the Air and Waste Management Association

1.317

121

Ecological Economics

1.179

Area-9: Process Systems Development and Engineering

122

INFORMS Journal on Computing

1.762

123

Automatica

1.693

124

SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing

1.509

125

Computers & Chemical Engineering

1.501

126

Mathematical Programming

1.497

127

Journal of Process Control

1.433

128

SIAM Journal on Optimization

1.238

129

Chemical Engineering and Processing

1.159

130

Computational Optimization and Applications

0.886

131

Chemical Engineering Research & Design

0.792

132

Chemical Engineering and Technology

0.678

133

Journal of Global Optimization

0.662

134

Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications

0.612

135

Annals of Operations Research

0.525

136

Process Safety Progress

0.320

137

Optimization and Engineering

 

Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 39
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 40
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 41
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 42
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 43
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 44
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 45
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 46
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 47
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 48
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 49
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 50
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 51
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 52
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 53
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 54
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 55
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 56
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 57
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 58
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 59
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
Page 60
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
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Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
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Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
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Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
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Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
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Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
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Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
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Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
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Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
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Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
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Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
×
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Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
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Page 72
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
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Page 73
Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
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Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
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Suggested Citation:"3 Benchmarking Results: Assessment of U.S. Leadership in Chemical Engineering At Large." National Research Council. 2007. International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11867.
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Next: 4 Benchmarking Results: Detailed Assessment of U.S. Leadership by Area of Chemical Engineering »
International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness Get This Book
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More than $400 billion worth of products rely on innovations in chemistry. Chemical engineering, as an academic discipline and profession, has enabled this achievement. In response to growing concerns about the future of the discipline, International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness gauges the standing of the U.S. chemical engineering enterprise in the world.

This in-depth benchmarking analysis is based on measures including numbers of published papers, citations, trends in degrees conferred, patent productivity, and awards. The book concludes that the United States is presently, and is expected to remain, among the world's leaders in all subareas of chemical engineering research. However, U.S. leadership in some classical and emerging subareas will be strongly challenged.

This critical analysis will be of interest to practicing chemical engineers, professors and students in the discipline, economists, policy makers, major research university administrators, and executives in industries dependent upon innovations in chemistry.

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