A new indicator for international visibility: exploring Brazilian scientific community

Brazilian science has increased fast during the last decades. An example is the increasing in the country’s share in the world’s scientific publication within the main international databases. But what is the actual weight of international publications to the whole Brazilian productivity? In order to respond this question, we have elaborated a new indicator, the International Publication Ratio (IPR). The data source was Lattes Database, a database organized by one of the main Brazilian S&;T funding agency, which encompasses publication data from 1997 to 2004 of about 51,000 Brazilian researchers. Influences of distinct parameters, such as sectors, fields, career age and gender, are analyzed. We hope the data presented may help S&;T managers and other S&;T interests to better understand the complexity under the concept scientific productivity, especially in peripheral countries in science, such as Brazil.     

Dentistry scientometric analysis: a comparative study between Brazil and other most productive countries in the area

This research aims at performing a comparative study between the Brazilian scientific production in Dentistry, from 2000 to 2009 and countries that contribute with at least 2 % of the world’s scientific production indexed in the Scopus database. More specifically, we intend to assess the annual Brazilian scientific production by comparing it to the other countries’, analyze the Brazilian and other countries’ publications in journals with higher impact factors, as well as to highlight the scientific production from these countries and its international visibility, measured by its total and by its average of citations and normalized citation index per year, by comparing the countries, and to compare the index h of such countries. As work procedure, the SCImago Journal and Country Rank was used as source, identifying the group of producing countries in the Dentistry area from 1996 to 2009. From a total of 136 countries, 13 were highlighted as the most productive, each one of them accounting for at least 2 % the worldwide scientific production in the area. The following indicators were raised for each country: number of produced documents, total of citations, self-citations, average of citations per document and index h. We verified that Brazil is the only country in Latin America that is pictured among the most productive ones in the Dentistry area. We observed that Brazil presents a growing visibility and impact in the international scenery, what suggests that its production is constantly consolidating, with Brazilian scientific recognition in the main vehicles of dissemination in the area.     

Scientific and technological development in Brazil. The widening gap

This article examines the contrast between Brazil"s impressive scientific development over the last 25 years and its lagging innovative capacity. As the world"s eighth largest economy, an evaluation of this link offers insights, not only for Brazil, but also for parallel developments in other emerging countries. The growth rate of Brazilian scientific production has exceeded the international average, showing a six-fold increase in the last twenty-five years. However, Brazil"s innovation capability is still unsatisfactory and, in contrast to its scientific production, is failing to grow significantly. This hiatus between the generation of science and innovation is also typical of other emergent countries. A possible remedy is suggested: interaction with universities and research centers is particularly necessary for Brazilian companies - far more so than in industrialized countries. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A profile of science in Brazil

The Brazilian contribution to publications in science and humanities increased from 0.29% of the worldwide total in 1981 to 0.46% in 1993. In science, but not in humanities, Brazilian publications tend to follow the world publication trend; thus, during the period 1981–1993, 57.9% of Brazilian publications were in life sciences, 35.4% in exact sciences, 3.9% in earth sciences and 2.9% in humanities. The ten institutions with the largest number of publications are universities, which account for half of the all Brazilian publications. The total number of authors on the Brazilian 1981–1993 publications was 52,808. Among these 57.8% appear in only one publication and 17.5% have their publications cited more than 10 times.     

Human resources and scientific productivity in Brazil

The number of Brazilian scientific publications increased from 0.29% to 0.56% of the worldwide total during the 1981–1993 period. There was a decrease of the funds allocated to most scientific activities, except for that allocated for training of new scientists. The numbers of research fellowships and scientific publications increased at the same ratio during the period. The pattern of scientific publications and the number of fellowship granted along the years in the different fields of research were analyzed. The data presented indicate that even in a period of economic crisis, a selective investment of funds in human resources may lead to an increase of the scientific productivity of a country in all science fields.     

Recognition and international collaboration: the Brazilian case

The number of Brazilian publications in the Institute for Scientific Information database, ISI, increased significantly in the last 20 years, comprising more than 1 percent of the database in the last two years. The relationship between size and recognition of Brazilian science, estimated by number of ISI-indexed publications, p, and citations, c, obeyed a power law, c = k pⁿ. The value of n, a known indicator of such relationship was 1.42 ± 0.04, significantly higher than that found for the whole set of ISI-indexed world publications. The recent growth of Brazilian publication was not solely due to international collaboration, since over the last six years international collaboration, estimated as the percentage of Brazilian publications having at least one foreign address, reached a constant value of ca. 30%. International collaboration increased the impact of Brazilian publications. Although the most frequent collaborating countries are those that produce the largest percentage of world"s science, Brazilian collaboration with Argentina and Chile exhibit impacts comparable to the major science producers. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Intellectual structure of Antarctic science: A 25-years analysis

To delineate the intellectual structure of Antarctic science, the research outputs on Antarctic science have been analyzed for a period of 25 years (1980–2004) through a set of scientometrics and network analysis techniques. The study is based on 10,942 records (research articles, letters, reviews, etc.), published in 961 journals/documents, and retrieved from the Science Citation Index (SCI) database. Over the years interest in Antarctic science has increased, as is evident from the growing number of ratified countries and research stations. During the period under study, the productivity has increased 3-times and there is a 13-fold increase in collaborative articles. Attempt has been made to identify important players like scientists, organizations and countries working in the field and to identify frontier areas of research that is being conducted in this continent. The highest 41% scientific output is contributed by the USA and the UK, followed by Australia and Germany. British Antarctic Survey (BAS), UK and Alfred Wegener Institute of Polar & Marine Research, Germany are the most productive institutes in Antarctic science. Maximum number of research articles on Antarctic science, have been published in the journal Polar Biology, indicating substantial work being done on the biology of this continent. The journals — Nature and Science — are the highly-cited journals in Antarctic science. The paper written by J. C. Farman et al., published in Nature in 1985, reporting depletion of ozone layer, is the most-cited article. Semantic relationships between cited documents were measured through co-citation analysis. J. C. Farman and S. Solomon are co-cited most frequently.     

The Life Sciences - the relative contribution of the University of S&;#227;o Paulo to the highest impact factor journals and to those with the largest number of articles, 1980 to 1999

Summary The contribution of Brazil to the database of the Institute for Scientific Information, ISI, has increased remarkably during the last years. Among the Brazilian research institutions, the publications of the University of São Paulo (USP) have been around 30% of the country's total publication within the ISI database. A similar share was found for USP's publications published in the 1980-1999 period and classified in the Life Sciences. This was observed in publications from both the highest impact factor journals and from those with the largest number of articles. We have found that the present share of USP's publications in some of the fields of the Life Sciences was much less than 30%, suggesting a gradual decentralization of the scientific activity in Brazil. The data point out that this set of USP's publications were concentrated in traditional and basic fields of biological research, where the focus is mainly oriented by international trends. The data suggest that USP's researchers have not been much devoted to some of the fields where research is oriented toward national issues.     

Brazilian scientific production in science education

In the present study we analyzed the Brazilian scientific production in the area of science education. The study was structured on: data by research groups registered in Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico; analysis of the post-graduate strictu sensu programs; analysis of theses and dissertations linked to post-graduate programs; and papers in international databases. Our research was conducted strictly via world wide web, from December 2009 to September 2010. It was found that both number of research groups, researchers, post-graduate programs, thesis, dissertations and papers presented a marked increase, especially in the last decade (from 2000 onwards). The major research centers were found to be located in public universities from Brazilian southeast and south regions. However, it was observed a tendency of decentralization, due to a recent investment in new public universities in the other Brazilian regions. So, this study sought to present an overview of the scientific production about science education and we expect that this information can help to expand the vision about the development of this research area in Brazil.     

Research productivity in soil science in the Philippines

Understanding the direction and magnitude of soil science publication in the Philippines is crucial in formulating research priorities and funding allocation. There is no consensus on the current state of soil science publication in the Philippines, thus this study was conducted to elucidate the trend in the soil science publication. We conducted an in-depth analysis on the total number of publications and the total number of citations of soil science publications collected from Thomson ISI database. Results revealed an upsurge in soil science publication from 1970 to 2000 with no indication that this trend is slowing down. Increases in the number of citations with time are consistent with increases in the total number of publications (r = 0.93; p < 0.05). Results further revealed that the soil science publication in the Philippines is biased towards rice research particularly soil water with very few studies were published for plant nutrition and soil chemistry. The present study highlights the need for a paradigm shift in soil science research from mostly rice related research to environmental research. Ways to increase soil science publication among Filipino soil scientist’s particularly in academic institutions is proposed. Finally, since only a few government-funded research have been published, future studies should stress on identifying factors that influence scientific productivity of most soil scientists in the Philippines.     

Central international visibility of Brazilian psychiatric publications from 1981 to 1995

In this study, we examine the scientific output of Brazilian psychiatry, based on the databaseof the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), publications in the 10 most important psychiatricjournals, and publications in major Brazilian journals. The number of Brazilian publications (i.e.,those carrying at least one Brazilian address) in psychiatry in the ISI database increased by 168%during the 15-year period under study (1981-1995) . Despite this growth, the relative contributionof publications in psychiatry to the country's publications in medical sciences did not change overthe 15-year period. This fraction, around 2%, remained at less than one-third of the averagecontribution of psychiatry journals to publications in medicine worldwide. The impact inferredfrom number of citations (1981-1992) shows that Brazilian articles in psychiatry were cited lessthan the world average in this field. In the 10 psychiatry journals with the highest impact,Brazilian authors published only 48 articles in the 1981-1995 period, representing only 0.2% ofthe articles in those journals. Like their American and British counterparts, Brazilian psychiatristsalso published primarily in domestic journals: 87.1% of the publications by Brazilians appeared inthe two major Brazilian psychiatric journals, compared with only 12.9% in foreign journals.Among publications in psychiatry in the ISI database, the number of articles co-authored byBrazilians with scientists from other countries increased 12.3 fold from 1981-1985 to 1991-1995,representing at the end 50% of all publications by Brazilian psychiatrists in international journals.Despite all cuts in funding for Brazilian science during the last decades, all of the articles in oursample originated in public universities, and only 10 universities were responsible for 70% of thepublications by Brazilian psychiatrists in our survey period. We conclude that Brazilianpsychiatric research is a subject worthy of particular concern, especially if we take into accountthe country's modest scientific performance and the socio-economic consequences of mentaldisorders in the Brazilian population.     

Scientific production in Computer Science: A comparative study of Brazil and other countries

In this paper we present a study about scientific production in Computer Science in Brazil and several other countries, as measured by the number of articles in journals and conference proceedings indexed by ISI and by Scopus. We compare the Brazilian production from 2001 to 2005 with some Latin American, Latin European, BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China), and other relevant countries (South Korea, Australia and USA). We also classify and compare these countries according to the ratio of publications in journals and conferences (the ones indexed by the two services). The results show that Brazil has by far the largest production among Latin American countries, has a production about one third of Spain’s, one fourth of Italy’s, and about the same as India and Russia. The growth in Brazilian publications during the period places the country in the mid-range group and the distribution of Brazilian production according to impact factor is similar to most countries.     

No free lunches in nature? An analysis of the regional distribution of the affiliations of Nature publications

Nature is among the world’s most highly cited multidisciplinary science journals with one of the highest impact factors of 38.597 (Nature Publishing Group (NPG) 2013), which is used relatively often in many scientific rankings. When analysing the regional distribution of Nature publications, we found a high correlation between the expenditures and the number of local affiliations that are counted on a national basis. The same regularity can be observed for the world’s top 30 and the US’s top 50 universities; however, the correlation is now skewed by the so-called cumulative advantage or the Matthew Effect, which evidently rewards those that are ranked at the top of the Academic Ranking of World Universities. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Surprisingly, the amount of the endowment better determines the number of Nature publications for universities than the total research expenditure.     

The changing dynamics in citation index publication position China in a race with the USA for global leadership

Along with China’s economic emergence is a controversy over the quality and international visibility of citation index publications. This study uses bibliometric statistics to shed further light on the global landscape of citation index publications with special focus on China and the USA. The analysis explores 31 years of the TRS (Thomson Reuters Scientific) database, spanning the 1980–2010 period. Based on this study, the USA maintains global dominance for both WOK (Web of Knowledge) and WOS (Web of Science) TRS publications. Although China ranks a distant second for WOK, it lags behind five other nations for WOS publications. China’s scientific base needs further restructuring for greater global visibility. Emerging economies such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa are fast rising in the global ranks for WOK/WOS publications. China may already be leading the world in some publication attributes, although it could take several more decades to catch up with the USA in others. Normalizations of the publications with population, PTE (population with tertiary education) and GDP (gross domestic product) put small/low-population countries in the global lead. However, countries such as Canada, Greenland, Iceland and Sweden still rank high for most of these publication attributes. Furthermore, WOS per WOK analysis shows that small and/or economically weak countries place greater emphasis on WOS publications. This is particularly visible for countries in Africa and South America. Despite the addition of a large number of indigenous Chinese journals to the TRS database, prediction analysis suggests that China’s desire to surpass the USA could be delayed for several decades. In the race for the next-generation scientific superpower, however, China not only needs to sustain substantial investments in research and development, but also requires restructuring of its research industry. This is especially critical for data readiness, availability and accessibility to the scientific community, and radical implementations of research recommendations.     

Publication trends in materials science: a global perspective

This paper attempts to highlight quantitatively and qualitatively the growth and development of world literature on materials science in terms of publication output and citations as per Web of Science (2006–2010). The objective of the study was to perform a scientometric analysis of all materials science research publications in the world. The parameters studied include growth of publications and citations, continent-wise distribution of publications and citations, country-wise distribution of publications, domain-wise distribution of publications and citations, publication efficiency index, distribution of publications and citations according to number of collaborating countries, variation of mean impact factor in materials science domains, identification of highly cited publications and highly preferred journals, quality of research output and application of Bradford’s law.     

Basic science in the Islamic Republic of Iran

The population of Iran has nearly doubled in less than 25 years, while the number of university students has increased more than 10 times and 720 Ph. D. degrees have been awarded in basic science in the past 10 years. Despite the great difficulties that the Iranian scientists have been facing for more than two decades (as a consequence of a social revolution, 8 years of a destructive war imposed by Iraq, excessive brain drain, discriminatory practices by some international journals in publishing the Iranian articles, and unfair sanctions imposed by the industrialized countries) Iran's science is still thriving and the current number of yearly scientific publications exceeds 1500. When normalized with respect to the number of researchers and the research budget, the Iranian scientists seem to outperform most of their counterparts in the advanced industrialized nations. Main reason: total engagement in truncated research activities (basic or applied) leading solely to pure publications; lack of infrastructure for developmental research activities leading to new technologies. The average impact factor of the papers in various fields of basic science seems quite satisfactory considering the difficult conditions the Iranian scientists are working under. Should the research budgets and conditions improve and the unfair sanctions currently imposed by the world politics be eliminated, a far better contribution to the world science can be expected. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Research fund evaluation based on academic publication output analysis: the case of Chinese research fund evaluation

Scientometrics - Government funding is a key scientific research resource, and it has made a concrete contribution to the world’s science and technology development. But these funds come from...     

Ten years of the genomic era in Brazil: Impacts on technological development assessed by scientific production and patent analysis

Over ten years ago Brazil entered the era of genome projects with the launch of its first sequencing effort. Since then, a series of projects have been undertaken in the country, greatly contributing to the formation of scientific research networks, related infrastructure and specialized labor. Today, Brazil’s competence in this area is internationally recognized and it is one of the main countries in the number of genomes sequenced. This article examines the effects of these genome initiatives on Brazilian technological innovation, through a broad bibliometric review, comprising the analysis of academic and patent publications, which revealed that the development of technology has not kept pace with scientific output.     

Black Africa in the science citation index

According to a quantitative analysis of the publications of the Black African Countries indexed in the SCI between 1992 to 1998, Nigeria seems to be the leader in scientific production on the black continent during that period (the term ‘Black Africa’ refers to all African countries excluding South Africa, Maghrebi, and Egypt). However, an analysis that only takes into account the number of publications does not necessarily disclose very much about neither the dynamics of the respective scientific community nor about the representativity of the country’s production with respect to its total population. Therefore, the number of publications per country is compared with the respective total population. According to this method, Kenya turns out to be the leader in scientific-publication production and several other countries get higher ranks. Additionally, any evaluation of scientific production in that part of the world should also take into account the specific features of these countries, e.g. the difficulties in publication and the existence of a large number of unpublished texts.     

Brazilian scientific production in areas of biological sciences: a comparative study on the modalities of full doctorate in Brazil or abroad

Know and compare the Brazilian scientific production of researchers that did full PhD in Brazil or abroad may be important to evaluate the development of science in the country. In this context, the current study was planned to verify the evolution of scientific production of researchers that concluded PhD in Brazil or abroad between 1997 and 2002. The evaluation included specifically the scientific production of PhDs in the areas of biochemistry, physiology and pharmacology during the period of 9 years after the PhD conclusion. The data were obtained from the database of CAPES (Foundation for Higher Education Development in Brazil), CNPq (National Council of Technological and Scientific Development), Lattes, Web of Science (Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and Scival—Scopus). In terms of quantity, researchers that did full PhD in Brazil published more articles than the researchers that did it abroad. However, articles from researchers that did the PhD in Brazil were published in journals with lower impact factor and received less citation than the articles published by researchers that did PhD abroad. The results indicate that the qualitative performance of researchers that did PhD abroad was better than those who did PhD in Brazil. Consequently, the policies of Brazilian government need to be devoted to enhance the relevance of Brazilian articles in terms of scientific quality and international insertion.