A comparative study of the difference in research performance in biomedical fields among selected Western and Asian countries (original) (raw)
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Science Editing, 2014
Publication growth rates in Asia have been rapidly increasing since 2000. Amid this constant rise in the quantity of papers, however, concerns over the quality of research output in Asia have also increased. The purpose of this paper is to examine science and technology journals in Asia where research is burgeoning and to find ways to enhance the visibility and frequency of citation of articles published by non-Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and developing countries in Asia. In this work, the research output of twelve countries in science and engineering over the last five years is studied, using the Scopus database. We compared publication growth, number of citations per publication, the field-weighted citation impact of publications, national and international collaboration rates, and the number of journals in each country found in the Scopus database. We find that a predominant number of research papers produced in developing Asian countries are in technology. Hence, most research papers produced in Asian regions appear to have lower citation rates and are often devaluated. We suggest this devaluation relates to an individual state's strategy for national development, or policy priorities for choosing whether to invest primarily in basic science or applied science. Further, this work suggests that enhancing the accessibility and visibility of local academic journals can be conducive to enhancing the quality of research output, both in developing countries and in the world overall.
Highly Cited Papers in Medical Fields: Scientometric Indicators and collaboration in OIC countries
2019
Some OIC countries have been growing rapidly in terms of international scientific publication.The purpose of this study was to determine the number of highly cited papers, the scholarly impact, H-index, Y-index, and the status of scientific collaboration among Islamic countries in medical fields. The research population included the highly cited papers in medical subject fields of all Islamic countries based on ESI. The Islamic world accounts for 1,338 (2.58%) of the world’s highly cited papers in medical fields, showing a rising trend from 2007–2017. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran rank first to third, respectively, in terms of the number of highly cited papers and the H-index. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan rank in the top three in terms of citation. Iran has published the largest number of papers by the first author and corresponding author, while Turkey and Saudi Arabia rank second and third, respectively. Collaboration among Islamic countries is low. Most of the highly cited...
National medical research ranking and scientific productivity: Where do we stand?
Journal of Research in Medical Sciences, 2012
Background: Continuous evaluation of research performance is an effective tool for financial and human resource allocation to promote knowledge production by academic institutions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the scientific performance of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences (IUMS) from April 2010 to April 2011 in the national medical research ranking. Methods: This cross sectional study was carried out through running advanced searches in the national, local and international information databases and other websites. Then the data were analyzed in order to demonstrate IUMS scientific production and research status at a national level. Results: From April 2010 to April 2011, about 9% of total Iranian medical articles, 6% of total Iranian ISI indexed articles in medical science and 12% of Iranian PubMed indexed articles affiliated to Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. Although Isfahan University of Medical Sciences stood at the third place in the annual national research ranking, but it was first in the scientific growth among Iranian medical universities. Conclusions: The study indicated that Isfahan University of Medical Sciences witnessed striking improvement in scientific productivity, research performance and national research grade during 2010-2011.
PLoS ONE, 2013
Objectives: This study aimed to compare the impact of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, spending on Research and Development (R&D), number of universities, and Indexed Scientific Journals on total number of research documents (papers), citations per document and Hirsch index (H-index) in various science and social science subjects among Asian countries. Materials and Methods: In this study, 40 Asian countries were included. The information regarding Asian countries, their GDP per capita, spending on R&D, total number of universities and indexed scientific journals were collected. We recorded the bibliometric indicators, including total number of research documents, citations per document and H-index in various science and social sciences subjects during the period 1996-2011. The main sources for information were World Bank, SCImago/Scopus and Web of Science; Thomson Reuters. Results: The mean per capita GDP for all the Asian countries is 14448.3162854.40 US$, yearly per capita spending on R&D 0.6460.16 US$, number of universities 72.37618.32 and mean number of ISI indexed journal per country is 17.9767.35. The mean of research documents published in various science and social science subjects among all the Asian countries during the period 1996-2011 is 158086.92669204.09; citations per document 8.6760.48; and H-index 122.8619.21. Spending on R&D, number of universities and indexed journals have a positive correlation with number of published documents, citations per document and H-index in various science and social science subjects. However, there was no association between the per capita GDP and research outcomes. Conclusion: The Asian countries who spend more on R&D have a large number of universities and scientific indexed journals produced more in research outcomes including total number of research publication, citations per documents and H-index in various science and social science subjects.
PLoS ONE, 2011
Background: Conventional scientometric predictors of research performance such as the number of papers, citations, and papers in the top 1% of highly cited papers cannot be validated in terms of the number of Nobel Prize achievements across countries and institutions. The purpose of this paper is to find a bibliometric indicator that correlates with the number of Nobel Prize achievements. Methodology/Principal Findings: This study assumes that the high-citation tail of citation distribution holds most of the information about high scientific performance. Here I propose the x-index, which is calculated from the number of national articles in the top 1% and 0.1% of highly cited papers and has a subtractive term to discount highly cited papers that are not scientific breakthroughs. The x-index, the number of Nobel Prize achievements, and the number of national articles in Nature or Science are highly correlated. The high correlations among these independent parameters demonstrate that they are good measures of high scientific performance because scientific excellence is their only common characteristic. However, the x-index has superior features as compared to the other two parameters. Nobel Prize achievements are low frequency events and their number is an imprecise indicator, which in addition is zero in most institutions; the evaluation of research making use of the number of publications in prestigious journals is not advised. Conclusion: The x-index is a simple and precise indicator for high research performance.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2019
We present a straightforward procedure to evaluate the scientific contribution of territories and institutions that combines the size-dependent geometric mean, Q, of the number of research documents (N) and citations (C), and a scale-free measure of quality, q=C/N. We introduce a Global Research Output (GRO-index) as the geometric mean of Q and q. We show that the GRO-index correlates with the h-index, but appears to be more strongly correlated with other well known, widely used bibliometric indicators. We also compute relative GRO-indexes (GROr) associated with the scientific production within research fields. We note that although total sums of GROr values are larger than the GRO-index, due to the non-linearity in the computation of the geometric means, both counts are nevertheless highly correlated. That enables us to make useful comparative analyses among territories and institutions. Furthermore, to identify strengths and weaknesses of a given country or
arXiv (Cornell University), 2022
Although not explicitly declared, most research rankings of countries and institutions are supposed to reveal their contribution to the advancement of knowledge. However, such advances are based on very highly cited publications with very low frequency, which can only very exceptionally be counted with statistical reliability. Percentile indicators enable calculations of the probability or frequency of such rare publications using counts of much more frequent publications; the general rule is that rankings based on the number of top 10% or 1% cited publications (P top 10% , P top 1%) will also be valid for the rare publications that push the boundaries of knowledge. Japan and its universities are exceptions, as their frequent Nobel Prizes contradicts their low P top 10% and P top 1%. We explain that this occurs because, in single research fields, the singularity of percentile indicators holds only for research groups that are homogeneous in their aims and efficiency. Correct calculations for ranking countries and institutions should add the results of their homogeneous groups, instead of considering all publications as a single set. Although based on Japan, our findings have a general character. Common predictions of scientific advances based on P top 10% might be severalfold lower than correct calculations.
Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science
The objective of this study was to analyze the top papers from Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member countries covered in the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) database during 2010-2019. The findings of the study showed that 41 out of 57 OIC member states have published 7,369 highly cited papers and 249 hot papers. The leading countries based on the overall top papers produced were Saudi Arabia, followed by Iran, Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan and Egypt. Iran was ranked first in terms of hot papers. When analysed by document type, all of the top papers were articles and published in the English language. The Lancet ranks among the top in terms of publishing OIC member countries’ top papers, showing that it has a great academic influence producing highly cited papers and hot papers. The top five organizations producing top papers are all top universities in their country and they are also ranked globally. King Abdulaziz University contributed the most for both highly cited pa...
A new approach to the analysis and evaluation of the research output of countries and institutions
Scientometrics, 2019
A plethora of bibliometric indicators is available nowadays to gauge research performance. The spectrum of bibliometric based measures is very broad, from purely size-dependent indicators (e.g. raw counts of scientific contributions and/or citations) up to size-independent measures (e.g. citations per paper, publications or citations per researcher), through a number of indicators that effectively combine quantitative and qualitative features (e.g. the h-index). In this paper we present a straightforward procedure to evaluate the scientific contribution of territories and institutions that combines size-dependent and scale-free measures. We have analysed in the paper the scientific production of 189 countries in the period 2006-2015. Our approach enables effective global and field-related comparative analyses of the scientific productions of countries and academic/research institutions. Furthermore, the procedure helps to identifying strengths and weaknesses of a given country or institution, by tracking variations of performance ratios across research fields. Moreover, by using a straightforward wealth-index, we show how research performance measures are highly associated with the wealth of countries and territories. Given the simplicity of the methods introduced in this paper and the fact that their results are easily understandable by non-specialists, we believe they could become a useful tool for the assessment of the research output of countries and institutions.