Subject(s)
Bibliometrics , Internationality , Research/statistics & numerical data , Biological Science Disciplines/statistics & numerical data , Chemistry/statistics & numerical data , Chile , Denmark , Ecology/statistics & numerical data , India , Periodicals as Topic , Physics/statistics & numerical data , Poland , Research/economics , Research/trends , Russia , Saudi Arabia , Singapore , South Africa , Thailand , TurkeySubject(s)
Internationality , Research/statistics & numerical data , Biological Science Disciplines/standards , Biological Science Disciplines/statistics & numerical data , Chemistry/standards , Chemistry/statistics & numerical data , Chile , Denmark , Ecology/standards , Ecology/statistics & numerical data , India , Physics/standards , Physics/statistics & numerical data , Poland , Research/standards , Research/trends , Russia , Saudi Arabia , Singapore , South Africa , Thailand , TurkeyABSTRACT
Scientific productivity of middle income countries correlates stronger with present and future wealth than indices reflecting its financial, social, economic or technological sophistication. We identify the contribution of the relative productivity of different scientific disciplines in predicting the future economic growth of a nation. Results show that rich and poor countries differ in the relative proportion of their scientific output in the different disciplines: countries with higher relative productivity in basic sciences such as physics and chemistry had the highest economic growth in the following five years compared to countries with a higher relative productivity in applied sciences such as medicine and pharmacy. Results suggest that the economies of middle income countries that focus their academic efforts in selected areas of applied knowledge grow slower than countries which invest in general basic sciences.
Subject(s)
Chemistry/statistics & numerical data , Developing Countries/economics , Economic Development/statistics & numerical data , Models, Econometric , Physics/statistics & numerical data , Cluster Analysis , Statistics, NonparametricABSTRACT
A recent assessment of 4400 postgraduate courses in Brazil by CAPES (a federal government agency dedicated to the improvement of the quality of and research at the postgraduate level) stimulated a large amount of manifestations in the press, scientific journals and scientific congresses. This gigantic effort to classify 16,400 scientific journals in order to provide indicators for assessment proved to be puzzling and methodologically erroneous in terms of gauging the institutions from a metric point of view. A simple algorithm is proposed here to weigh the scientometric indicators that should be considered in the assessment of a scientific institution. I conclude here that the simple gauge of the total number of citations accounts for both the productivity of scientists and the impact of articles. The effort spent in this exercise is relatively small, and the sources of information are fully accessible. As an exercise to estimate the value of the methodology, 12 institutions of physics (10 from Brazil, one from the USA and one from Italy) have been evaluated.
Subject(s)
Humans , Academies and Institutes/statistics & numerical data , Journal Impact Factor , Periodicals as Topic/statistics & numerical data , Academies and Institutes/classification , Brazil , Feasibility Studies , Government Agencies , Periodicals as Topic/classification , Physics/statistics & numerical data , Reproducibility of ResultsABSTRACT
A recent assessment of 4400 postgraduate courses in Brazil by CAPES (a federal government agency dedicated to the improvement of the quality of and research at the postgraduate level) stimulated a large amount of manifestations in the press, scientific journals and scientific congresses. This gigantic effort to classify 16,400 scientific journals in order to provide indicators for assessment proved to be puzzling and methodologically erroneous in terms of gauging the institutions from a metric point of view. A simple algorithm is proposed here to weigh the scientometric indicators that should be considered in the assessment of a scientific institution. I conclude here that the simple gauge of the total number of citations accounts for both the productivity of scientists and the impact of articles. The effort spent in this exercise is relatively small, and the sources of information are fully accessible. As an exercise to estimate the value of the methodology, 12 institutions of physics (10 from Brazil, one from the USA and one from Italy) have been evaluated.