  Science is essential to innovation and economic prosperity. Although studies
have shown that national scientific development is affected by geographic,
historic, and economic factors, it remains unclear whether there are universal
structures and trajectories of national scientific development that can inform
forecasting and policymaking. Here, by examining countries' scientific
'exports'-publications that are indexed in international databases-we reveal a
three-cluster structure in the relatedness network of disciplines that underpin
national scientific development and the organization of global science. Tracing
the evolution of national research portfolios reveals that while nations are
proceeding to more diverse research profiles individually, scientific
production is increasingly specialized in global science over the past decades.
By uncovering the underlying structure of scientific development and connecting
it with economic development, our results may offer a new perspective on the
evolution of global science.
