Explaining the transatlantic gap in research excellence

The paper exploits a newly created dataset offering several detailed bibliometric data and indicators on 251 subject categories for a large sample of universities in Europe, North America and Asia. In particular, it addresses the controversial issue of the distance between Europe and USA in research excellence (so called “transatlantic gap”). By building up indicators of objective excellence (top 10% worldwide in publications and citations) and subjective excellence (top 10% in the distribution of share of top journals out of total production at university level), it is shown that European universities fail to achieve objective measures of global excellence, while being competitive only in few fields. The policy implications of this state of affairs are discussed.