| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|||||||||
,1
* Alfa Institute of Biomedical Sciences (AIBS), Athens, Greece;
Cyprus International Institute for the Environment and Public Health in association with Harvard School of Public Health, Nicosia, Cyprus; and
Department of Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
1Correspondence: Alfa Institute of Biomedical Sciences (AIBS), 9 Neapoleos St., 15123 Marousi, Greece. E-mail: matthew.falagas{at}tufts.edu
 |
ABSTRACT |
|---|
 TOP ABSTRACT INTRODUCTIONMATERIALS AND METHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
|---|
Key Words: research productivity • world regions • top journals • publications’ quality
|
INTRODUCTION |
|---|
|
TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONMATERIALS AND METHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
|---|
. Investment in research is also thought to be a powerful tool for governments struggling to compete in the current environment of "globalization" (2)
. The scientific community operates within an overarching paradigm, which places a significant weight in peer-reviewed journals indexed in worldwide accepted electronic databases. The evaluation process is also guided by certain generally accepted criteria such as the assigned impact factor of each journal (3)
.
It is widely known that publication of research articles in biomedical journals has grown exponentially in the past few decades (4
, 5)
. Several reasons have contributed to the ever-increasing number of journals and scientific papers being published either in hard copies, electronically, or both, and indexed in electronic databases around the world. Technological advances in computer science, communication, the growth of biotechnology, the spread of computerized information, and the availability of personal computers in combination with the development of the worldwide web, constitute a few important factors that have offered new opportunities in recent years and facilitate the performance of biomedical research by individuals or networks of scientists.
In several studies, scientists have reported on the participation of different countries in research in several disciplines (6
7
8
9)
. However, little is known about the global ranking of different world regions regarding articles published in the highest-ranking biomedical journals (4)
. To evaluate the contribution of individual countries, different geographic areas, and entire continents in the production of research papers presented in the top 50 biomedical journals of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database (10)
of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) between 1995 and 2002, we conducted a study of all relevant published articles in the PubMed database (11)
. We also evaluated the research productivity of each region adjusted for funds spent on research and development, as well as the number of scientists involved.
|
MATERIALS AND METHODS |
|---|
|
TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONMATERIALS AND METHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
|---|
. Briefly, research productivity was evaluated by dividing the world into different regions, identifying all articles published during the study period (1995–2002), and documenting the country of origin for each first author. The number of published articles was considered as an index of quantity of research productivity. The mean impact factor of the published articles was used as a quality indicator. Finally, the product of the number of articles multiplied by the impact factor of the journal, for the year studied, was considered a combined indicator of the quantity and quality of research productivity. The sum of the above products from all journals, for each world region within a year, was documented as a "total product" of research for each particular region.
World regions
For the purpose of our study, the world was divided into nine regions based on a combination of geographic, economic, and scientific criteria (12)
: the United States of America (the U.S.), Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Asia, Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and Africa. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands were evaluated together with the U.S. Greenland was assigned to Western Europe and Japan was studied as a separate region from the rest of Asia. All former socialist countries of Europe were included in the category of Eastern Europe.
Journals
All journals, which were ranked as the top 50 journals in the Journal Citation Reports for 1995–2002 at each year, were included in our study. Several journals were not ranked in the top 50 category for certain years of the study period. To evaluate any significant differences among the journals, which were not always included in the top-ranking list, we performed similar analyses restricting our sample size to 26 journals that were ranked in the top 50 category for the entire study period (1995–2002).
Search procedures
A phrase consisting of four parts joined together by the so-called Boolean operators (i.e., AND, OR, and NOT) was used in our search in the PubMed database. Each search was limited to a specific year using the "Limits" function, which is incorporated in the search engine. We used data only on original articles and reviews, excluding publication types such as letters, editorials, and news reports. This was accomplished by selecting publications with the characterization "journal article [pt]" in the search fields of the database ("pt" designates publication type). All countries of each region were included in the first parenthesis of the search phrase. In the second parenthesis, after the word NOT, certain addresses were excluded in order to avoid double counting.
Subsequently, the results of our search (the number of articles produced by each world region in a specific journal within a year) were summed up. Further confirmation was accomplished by summing up the articles retrieved from our search for all different world regions in a specific journal and comparing them to the actual total number of articles published in the same journal for a specific year. The total number was obtained from PubMed without using any address limits. Using the above methodology we were able to cross-examine missed or unretrieved addresses. The above scenario was occasionally useful in cases of articles with no address registered or articles where only the affiliated institution or the city (not the country) was recorded.
If less than 5% of the total articles of a specific journal during a year had missing addresses, those articles were excluded. On the other hand, if more than 5% of the total articles of a specific journal had missing addresses, we checked the author’s address by looking at other articles of the same author within the same year. To include addresses where only cities or areas were registered, we expanded our search criteria, including search phrases with big cities or capitals (e.g., Munchen, London, or Moscow) and all individual states of the U.S.
Regional economic and scientific resources
To further evaluate the research productivity of each region, adjusted for other factors, we used relevant "World Development Indicators" (13)
from the online databases of the World Bank. The research productivity of different world regions (estimated by the "total product") was adjusted (divided by) for the total population, the gross domestic product (GDP) in standard 1995 U.S. dollars, the gross national income (GNI) per capita (Atlas method), the percentage of GDP spent on research and development (R&D) and the number of researchers per million population for each region for which data were available.
|
RESULTS |
|---|
|
TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONMATERIALS AND METHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
|---|
Table 1
presents the total production of articles by each world region and the relative contribution of each region to the total number of articles published in the top 50 biomedical journals every year. Consistently, 6 of every 10 articles published every year during the 8-year period were from the U.S., and another 3 of 10 originated in Western Europe. Only 1 of 10 articles was being published from the rest of the world. The U.S., by far, ranked first every year, Western Europe second, Japan third, Canada fourth, Asia and Oceania were sharing fifth place; the rest of the world regions had lower rankings. Despite several changes occurring every year in the list of the top 50 ranked journals, the ranking of different regions showed no notable changes.
|
The total production of articles of all world regions, for the 26 journals that were always ranked in the top 50 category during the entire study period is presented in Table 2
. There were no significant differences with respect to the contribution of each region between the two tables. There was a small increase in the contribution of the U.S. compared with a corresponding decrease in the production of Western Europe and the other world regions.
|
A similar picture is seen in Table 3
, where we present the product of the number of published articles multiplied by their corresponding impact factor. The U.S. continues to lead with a significant distance from the second-ranking region (Western Europe). Japan, Canada, Oceania, and Asia have much lower outcomes, and the other three regions are very far behind. However, there were no important changes over time in either the numbers of articles produced every year from each region or the product of the articles multiplied by their impact factor.
|
An interesting finding is seen in Fig. 1
, representing the percentages of published articles over time from each region, adjusted by their corresponding population size. After the adjustment, the U.S. continued to lead, however, Canada ranked second, surpassing Western Europe, and Oceania ranked fourth above Japan, while the ranking of the other regions was not significantly altered.
|
In Fig. 2
we present the association between the gross national income per capita (GNIPC) in U.S. dollars and the number of articles published from each region, adjusted for population size. In this figure, the U.S. is dominating the world since it has the second highest GNIPC and by far the highest production of research. Canada has a relatively low GNIPC, but ranks second in the number of articles published per million population. Western Europe follows closely with Canada, and Oceania has a very interesting outcome. Although it shows the lowest GNIPC among the developed nations, it produces the fourth highest number of research articles per million of population. Japan, although with the highest GNIPC among all regions, appears to have the lowest research productivity among the developed nations. Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and Africa have all very low GNIPC and research production.
|
When we examined the funds spent on research compared with the number of articles produced, Canada ranks first with 37.8 articles per billion of U.S. dollars spent, the U.S. ranks second with 36.0 articles, Western Europe third with 19.4 articles, and Japan fourth with only 3.4 articles per billion of U.S. dollars spent in research. A different ranking, however, was seen when we looked at the number of articles produced per 1000 scientists-years of research. The U.S. reclaimed its first place with 7.2 articles, Canada second with 5.4 articles, Western Europe third with 4.3 articles, and Japan fourth with 0.9 articles per 1000 scientists-years spent on research.
|
DISCUSSION |
|---|
|
TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONMATERIALS AND METHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
|---|
As mentioned, the U.S. not only ranks first but also contributes about two-thirds of all published articles in the top 50 biomedical journals as opposed to its contribution in specific disciplines, which has a lower range (from 35 to 45%) with respect to the world’s research output (4)
. Western Europe, mostly represented by the European Union, is lagging behind by all measures of comparisons although it occupies the second place in most of the above-examined indicators. European contribution in the world’s top publications is one-third compared with the U.S. European Union countries would need to increase their investment and perhaps improve their efficiency and effectiveness in integrating a unified research environment that will facilitate the development of networks and institutions capable of competing in top-notch research fields. Similar recommendations may also apply to other world regions that aspire to compete with the leading power in scientific publications.
Our study also provides information on the relative contribution of different world regions in the top-quality research produced around the world. The adjusted indicators presented allow for comparisons of the research productivity between areas of the world with diverse population size, economic status, and funding for different research priorities. In addition, our data may be used as baseline information in evaluating the return of investment on research in the future for different world regions. Previous studies have reported on similar factors related to the geographical distribution of medical publications (14
15
16)
. Our findings fall within the boundaries of previous reports in terms of ranking of research contributions of different regions/countries.
Our study has several limitations. First, we used JCR criteria to identify the top 50 biomedical journals included in the study every year. Articles published in non-JCR-cited journals were not included, although we recognize that they contribute to scientific research. The above is specifically important for regions with authors, who are not native speakers of the English language (i.e., Japan, Asia and Eastern Europe), and may publish their findings in journals of their own language (17)
. Furthermore, the impact factor has often been criticized as a tool for evaluating the quality of scientific research (18
19
20
21)
. However, we believe that the impact factor represents one of the best-known methods of quality evaluation for biomedical journals (3
, 22)
.
In addition, we used PubMed, an easily accessible and widely used database. Nevertheless some scientific articles are not included in this database and so were not evaluated in the current investigation. In PubMed, only the address of the first author is presented, so the fact that a study may be the result of a multinational cooperation is not taken into account. Our search criteria were not perfect in retrieving the addresses of all articles; therefore, the data collection process may have not been comprehensive, although we adjusted our procedures in order to avoid double counting of articles. As a result, we assume that the number of missed articles did not significantly affect our results. We used our own criteria to divide the world into different regions. We think that our categorization takes into account geographic and economic criteria that may be replicated by other researchers. Finally, not all journals were ranked in the top 50 category during the entire study period. However, our results were not altered when we restricted the analysis to 26 journals, which were always ranked in the top 50 list.
In conclusion, we evaluated the contribution of different world regions in the top 50 biomedical journals during an 8-year study period. Our findings represent a tool for governments as well as global agencies and organizations to assess different regions in terms of research productivity. Such evaluations may also be used to allocate resources and create incentives for those regions that are lacking behind. Furthermore, they may be used as baseline criteria for future comparisons over time.
|
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
|---|
Received for publication July 13, 2005. Accepted for publication October 5, 2005.
|
REFERENCES |
|---|
|
TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONMATERIALS AND METHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
|---|
Related Articles
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  M. E. Falagas, E. A. Zarkadoulia, I. A. Bliziotis, and G. Samonis Science in Greece: from the age of Hippocrates to the age of the genome FASEB J, October 1, 2006; 20(12): 1946 - 1950. [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
