Southeast Asia has almost doubled its share of the world's research papers over a 10-year period, and increased its patenting activity by 40% in the past three years, according to a survey conducted by IP & Science unit of Thomson Reuters.
The recent research found that the region has increased its share of the world's scientific literature from 2006, with approximately 13,700 documents, accounting for 1.37% of all science documents on the web, to 2015 with 37,000, representing 2.43% of the total share.
"We found Brunei and Vietnam saw at least 300% growth in term of the number of papers between 2006 and 2015; however, the regional research output is still dominated by research communities in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, which account for 85% of the region's research publications," said See Diu Seng, a specialist in Scientific & Scholarly Research at Thomson Reuters.
Mr See said a key component in Southeast Asia's progress in science and innovation is collaboration with other nations, especially co-authorship with the European Union and North America, which has yielded the largest quantities of reports in the region.
The expert said Southeast Asia's technology industry is largely concentrated on the chemical, agricultural and medicinal sectors and less toward semiconductors and and telecommunications.
Thailand, meanwhile, focuses more on clinical medicine and automotive engineering.
"I think the research papers of Thailand reflect its strength in the medical and automotive industries," he said.
When compared to Malaysia, Thailand has already been surpassed both in terms of research quantity and quality while Malaysia has sharply increased its contribution over the last decade, from roughly 1,900 papers in 2006 to more than 11,000 in 2015 -- a spike of almost 500%.