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 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.     

Thirty years of Brazilian research in Antarctica: ups, downs and perspectives

The Antarctic continent is the most untouched region of the world but is also among the most vulnerable to global environmental change. Alterations to the Antarctic environment can have cascading effects many of which are unpredictable. Our objective was to investigate the contribution of Brazilian scientists to Antarctic research and to characterize the actions taken by the country to improve its scientific output and its international impact in this area. Scientific publications related to Antarctica, released from 1981 to 2011 were searched using three important science data bases. The data were used to determine the absolute increase and the relative growth rate of publications in order to characterize the contribution of Brazil to the world’s scientific understanding of Antarctica. The number of publications revealed an undersized contribution of the Brazilian science to the world’s publications about Antarctica. However, over the last 30 years there has been a substantial increase in the number of publications associated with governmental financial policies. As in other countries, Brazil’s most significant scientific contributions regarding the Antarctic continent are in the biological sciences. Therefore, public policies should maintain the current official support, while the research groups should pay attention to strategic scientific and technological areas still uncovered in the Antarctic research.     

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.     

Growth of the number of indexed journals of Latin America and the Caribbean: the effect on the impact of each country

The number of LA–C indexed journals in WoS has increased from 69 to 248 titles in just a period of four years (2006–2009). This unprecedented growth is related to a change in the editorial policy of WoS rather than to a change in the LA–C scientific community. We find that in the LA–C region, Brazil had the largest increase in its WoS production that also corresponded to a large increase in its production in its indexed local journals. As a consequence, Portuguese has been promoted to the second scientific language, only after English, in the LA–C production in WoS. However, while the Brazilian production in its local journals represents about one quarter of its whole WoS production, it shows a rather little effect on the respective number of citations. The rest of the LA–C countries represented in WoS still show very low levels in production and impact. Scopus has also enlarged considerably the database’s coverage of LA–C journals but with a steady growth in the period considered in this study.     

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.     

Brazil’s growing production of scientific articles—how are we doing with review articles and other qualitative indicators?

This article identifies scientific fields in Brazil that have been generating new knowledge, their evolution, tendencies and the relationship between scientific production and the National Postgraduate Program (Programa Nacional de Pós-Graduação—PNPG). It works with review articles and assesses: (a) articles published as reviews by international databases; (b) the growth of Brazilian participation in that context; (c) institutional participation; (d) the predominant fields of knowledge; (e) the most productive authors, and (f) periodicals that published the greatest number of review articles by Brazilian authors. The 5,348 review articles published between 2000 and 2009 were made available in 1,309 scientific publications, and the fields that published the most reviews were Pharmacology, Chemistry, Neurosciences, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Psychiatry, Neurology, Endocrinology and Internal Medicine. The reviews were produced by 27,096 authors under the auspices of 20 institutions which, together, answer for 95 % of the Brazilian production, and are public, excepting for the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS). In the international scenario, we find that 31 countries are responsible for 90.11 % of the total scientific production and 94.08 % of the review articles. To establish a comparison between Brazil and its closest competitors, these countries can be classified arbitrarily in three groups: (1) countries with a large number of review articles (>3100), an average number of citations above 18, and an h-index greater than 95; (2) countries with a significant production of articles (between 2,000 and 3,000), average number of citations between 12 and 17, and an h-index below 95. Brazil is in the third group, (3) formed by countries with a lower level of production and the two qualitative indicators at opposite poles: the average of citations on a par with the first group (>18) and h-indexes like those of the second group (<95).     

Affordable housing and clean technology transfer in construction firms in Brazil

The affordable housing deficit in Brazil is 5.6 million homes. The Main Brazilian housing government program was called “Minha Casa, Minha Vida” from 2009 to 2020. It had little progress in the housing sustainability requirements in the last ten years. For that reason, construction industry has very little changed in terms of innovation. However, this sector has maintained standard production on a large scale. So, the crucial change could become from companies. The clean technology transfer is limited in the Brazilian affordable housing firms. One solution is to analyse this transfer process like a network. Then, it will be possible to evaluate the technological adaptability of these kinds of construction firms. This research aimed to estimate the clean technology transfer between construction firms in Brazil dedicated to building affordable housing. For this, it was identified the 69 construction firms in five cities of Rio Grande do Sul. The cities were Canoas, Caxias do Sul, Passo Fundo, Pelotas, Porto Alegre. Then, a network analysis identified the degree, betweenness, closeness, and density. These studies identify poor performance versus sustainability needs of current low-cost construction. As a result, it identifies the technology transfer capabilities that allow medium-term gains for Brazilian construction firms. Finally, we developed technology transfer indicators to understand the complexity of affordable housing production in Brazil.     

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.     

The key role of collaborative work in the growth of Brazilian science in the last ten years

The Brazilian scientific production and its international impact increased considerably in the last 10 years. This increase occurred in spite of a reduction in the resources for science in the same period. The data show that the explanation for this apparent paradox lies in the active process of international and national collaboration which increased in this same period. Collaborative work was supported by several programs of the Brazilian agencies. Advantages and possible drawbacks of the intensification of scientific collaboration for the Brazilian science are discussed.     

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.     

S&T knowledge production from 2000 to 2009 in two periphery countries: Brazil and South Korea

This paper investigates the dynamic evolution profiles of science and technology knowledge production in Brazil and the Republic of Korea from 2000 to 2009. The two countries have followed different models of publication profiles, bioenvironmental model and Japanese model, and they currently belong to periphery countries in terms of the center-periphery framework. Brazil and the Republic of Korea have established a few core disciplines successfully and increased their share in the world publication of scientific papers over the last decade. Notwithstanding the fact that the two countries have recorded sustained growth in the percentage of published scientific papers, South Korea has evolved into a more balanced science and technology knowledge production system, whereas Brazil into the more unbalanced knowledge production system. Core-lagging or periphery-lagging patterns of science production have been revealed in Brazil and indirectly imply that the existing science base has not been fully stimulated or utilized.     

Brazilian production in biochemistry. The question of international versus domestic publication

This work describes a bibliometric survey on scientific production in biochemistry originated from 19 Brazilian institutions, which comprised 487 staff investigators, 70–80% of investigation-active biochemists. These investigators published about 3000 papers in international journals in the period 1970–1985, which generated about 17000 citations from 1983 to 1987, according to the Institute for Scientific Information data base. In this survey we distinguished what we called endogenous articles (produced in Brazil) from exogenous articles (produced abroad by Brazilian biochemists), in terms of the spectrum of journals in which they were published and the number of citations generated per article. A comparison was also performed for the two groups in terms of the impact factor generated by Brazilian articles in a given journal versus the expected impact factor for all articles published in that journal. In all cases we detected a certain disadvantage for endogenous articles, the possible reason of which is discussed. Biochemistry is one of the scientific areas in Brazil in which the investigators make a large effort to publish in international journals. We observed differences in the impact generated by these international papers, when biochemistry was compared with other areas which exhibit the same tendency towards an international output. From these observations we discuss the pertinence of publishing for an international audience as opposed in domestic journals.Paper presented at the International Conference on Science Indicators for Developing Countries, Paris, 15–19 October, 1990.     

An EU without the UK: mapping the UK’s changing roles in the EU scientific research

In science, technology and innovation, the consequences of Britain’s exit (Brexit) for both Britain and the Europe Union (EU) are still uncertain. However, there is no doubt that in the years to come, the UK will need to re-calibrate its scientific collaborations with other EU countries. In this research, we aim to identify which EU countries would suffer the greatest loss and which research fields would be most affected by Brexit. Based on the scientific output of each EU country, as indexed by the Web of Science, we demonstrate that international scientific collaboration frequently involves the UK. We also define four types of roles according to the UK’s performance in production and collaboration; these roles are of great significance to our understanding of the status of the UK in the EU. In this sense, the UK acted as a leader in health sciences, a pioneer in social sciences, an assistant in physical sciences, and a participant in engineering.     

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.     

Example of open-source OPS (Open Patent Services) for patent education and information using the computational tool Patent2Net

This paper discusses the use of Patent2Net, an open source software for extracting and making available information on patents related to dengue fever, a neglected disease of high interest to Brazil. Only ten of 1427 dengue-related patents retrieved in the European worldwide database were filed by Brazilian institutions, showing low contribution of technological research in Brazil regarding this disease. The results enable the creation of new indicators, promoting social responsibility in research, since it is expected that scientific research will produce not only high-impact bibliographic production, but also technological products that can effectively further the search for solutions to problems.     

A comparison between domestic and international publications in Brazilian psychiatry

This article assesses the Brazilian psychiatric production and compares the numbers of articles published between 1981 and 1995 in Brazilian domestic journals and published in international journals. From the total number of articles analyzed, 87.2% were published in domestic journals. These probably will never reach the international scientific community. From the articles published in Brazil, 56.8% were review and opinion articles, while from the articles published in international journals, 69.8% were research articles. Publications in both Brazilian and international journals included few prospective research studies and research reports dealing with bipolar disorder and cocaine use. On the other hand, alcohol use disorder and major depressive disorder were the most commonly studied clinical fields published both in domestic and in international psychiatric journals. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Correlations between bibliometrics and peer evaluation for all disciplines: the evaluation of Brazilian scientists

This paper correlates the peer evaluations performed in late 2009 by the disciplinary committees of CNPq (a Brazilian funding agency) with some standard bibliometric measures for 55 scientific areas. We compared the decisions to increase, maintain or decrease a scientist’s research scholarship funded by CNPq. We analyzed these decisions for 2,663 Brazilian scientists and computed their correlations (Spearman rho) with 21 different measures, among them: total production, production in the last 5 years, production indexed in Web of Science and Scopus, total citations received (according to WOS, Scopus, and Google Scholar), h-index and m-quotient (according to the three citation services). The highest correlations for each area range from 0.95 to 0.29, although there are areas with no significantly positive correlation with any of the metrics.     

Science in Brazil. Part 2: Sectoral and institutional research profiles

Summary In the present study a bibliometric meso-level analysis of Brazilian scientific research is conducted. Both sectoral and publication profile of Brazilian universities and research institutions are studied. Publication dynamics and changing profiles allow to the conclusion that powerful growth of science in Brazil goes with striking structural changes. By contrast, citation-based indicators reflect less spectacular developments.     

Brazilian immunology: One hundred years later

Brazilian immunology dates from the end of the 19^th century. The aim of the present paperwas to analyze the impact of this field in contemporary Brazilian biomedical research. For this, a15 years period (1981-1995) was studied. Production of immunological articles in Brazilrepresented in 1995 a percentage of 8.66 of total papers in biomedical sciences in this country.This level was achieved by an exponential increase in 1991 in the number of papers inimmunology followed by a steady increase in the subsequent years. This growth was onlyobserved in articles published in international immunology journals listed by ISI, a similarincrease did not occur when the most representative Brazilian journal in biomedical sciences wasanalyzed. The production in immunology in the last five years (1991-1995) represented 60.69% oftotal articles in this field published in the whole 15 years period. When quality was assessed basedon impact factor of the journals were the articles appeared, 52.71% of total immunology papershad been published in journals with impact factors varying between 7.29 and 3.24. A higherdegree of international co-authorship was seen both in articles published in international journalsand presentations at international congresses compared to national ones. The main countriescollaborating with Brazil were: EUA, England and France. Within Brazil, immunology researchwas not equally distributed. Around 80% of the articles were produced by four states (São Paulo,Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Bahia), São Paulo being responsible for more than half of thosearticles. This geographic distribution closely resembles the distribution of the Brazilian Society ofImmunology (SBI) membership. The main field of study throughout the period wasimmunoparasitology.