Trends of the European Scientific Publications in Comparison with other World Leaders over the Period 2015-2019

This study focuses on the European Union and, by extension on Europe, as a region of first class knowledge creation and excellence in scientific and technological production. This production is essential for achieving high-impact innovation outputs and indicates the efficiency and effectiveness of the European research systems in transforming both public and private investments into tangible and intangible assets that enable higher value-added activities. This occurs in highly competitive international environment whereby alongside some traditional competitors and partners, new state and non-state forces have emerged over the last years. Among them, it merits mentioning China and the hi-tech private companies, such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft. The specific objectives of the thesis are: 1) evaluate the trends in the scientific production in the European Union over the last four years (2015-2019), 2) compare the European scientific production with that of its main world competitors, China and United States, and 3) identify the European strengths and weaknesses with a particular attention to competitiveness-linked indictors.