Indicadores de produccion cientifica y colaboracion en el sur de Brasil.
| Autor | Chitto Stumpf, Ida Regina |
Scientific Output Indicators and Collaboration in Southern Brazil
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Introduction
Assessing scientific output is a common practice adopted by development agencies, governmental departments, and bodies connected to S&T in several countries. Such assessments have proven essential to develop S&T indicators, subsequently distribute investments, develop local and institutional strategies, and evaluate the results from the policies implemented. S&T indicator-related practices have sparked special interest in nations whose scientific output is growing fast.
Brazil realized scientific research was important only in the late 19th century (The present..., 1883). In 2006, Brazil's production was the fastest growing among Latin American countries, recording an 8% annual increase in the Web of Science (WoS) database (Glanzel, Leta & Thijs, 2006). In 2008, the country ranked 13th worldwide in terms of scientific output indexed in WoS, aided by the increased number of Brazilian journals included in that database (Packer, 2011). Today, Brazil holds the same position in WoS and stands at 15th in SCOPUS' country productivity ranking (2). However, the country is still timid when it comes to developing S&T indicators and lacks an information tool capable of characterizing and sizing the state systems of science, technology and innovation (Rocha & Ferreira, 2004), despite the questions raised by the pace at which Brazil's scientific output is expanding. In such backdrop, questions as to the way the number of publications has been increasing, in which outlets and where the papers are being published and by means of which partnerships are yet to be answered.
Besides the lack of studies regarding Brazil as a whole, we find that an even greater unknown is the situation of scientific research and publication in the states. Brazilian states differ in terms of their scientific output, which differences stem mostly from their unequal social and economic development. It is vital to conduct studies into the Brazilian scientific output and its share worldwide, and such studies should include the particularities and interests of the country and its regions, states, cities, and institutions (FAPESP, 2010). As stated by Albuquerque, Simoes, Baessa, Campolina, and Leandro (2002): "The country's continental and federative nature requires an analysis of regional differences, at the same time said analysis introduces the potential role of building local and state innovation systems in the country." (p. 230). Therefore, specific situations also need to be identified.
The State of Sao Paulo has pioneered the efforts to map its scientific output. The mapping is an initiative by the state's research support foundation, the Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP). The FAPESP Science, Technology and Innovation Indicator Program is meant to report on statistics and indicators that reflect the recent situation and the main trends in the state's scientific and technological activities, and compare them to Brazilian and international efforts and results (FAPESP, 2004, 2010). The program has resulted in the publication of the Sao Paulo State Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators, a report about the situation in the state.
A similar initiative is underway in Rio Grande do Sul, a state located in the Brazilian far south and home to 10,693,929 people, equivalent to approximately 5% of the Brazilian population, and standing out as the 4th largest economy in the country (Instituto Brasileiro, 2010). The state is renowned for housing some of the most productive universities in Brazil, such as Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) and Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) (Vanz, 2009; Moura, 2009). The south, where the state is located, is the second largest out of the five regions in which the country is divided in terms of scientific output, and its growth rate exceeded 60% in 2002-2006 (FAPESP, 2010).
Other data previously published are related to investments made in science and technology in the state. According to the Science, Technology and innovation Index proposed by Rocha and Ferreira (2004), Rio Grande do Sul is in a second stage among the most advanced Brazilian states, along with Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina, and closely following Sao Paulo. The index comprises several indicators, including the percentage over the total expenditures in science and technology in the state (for RS, the figure is 1.09%) and the amount per person spent on science and technology, subsidized by the federal and state governments (for RS, the amount is BRL 11.35, equivalent to approximately USD 4.75). Since 1990, the RS State Constitution has mandated that 1.5% of the state's net income is to be transferred to the Foundation. However, the average has been a meager 0.3% (Berti, Oliveira, Souza, & Wofchuk, 2010) .The National Board of Scientific and Technological Development (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico--CNPq) census of Brazilian research groups in 2006 revealed that Rio Grande do Sul holds 10.4% of the country's groups and 9.5% of the PhDs (FAPESP, 2010). The total number of publications indexed by WoS is included in the index as well. According to Rocha and Ferreira (2004), RS accounted for 7.72% of the articles published by Brazil in 1999. The challenge of proposing an index comprising indicators from several governmental bodies and agencies was accepted by Rocha and Ferreira (2004), and has heightened the need for even deeper studies on this topic.
The purpose of this paper is to expand the research into scientific output indicators in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. To do that, it presents the RS scientific research spectrum indexed by Web of Science from 2000 to 2010, and details the output indicators, type of document, language, fields, and publication journal, as well as the collaboration between authors, institutions and countries.
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Methodology
The source from which data were collected was the Web of Science database posted by Thomson Reuters. WoS was searched in January 2012 in order to retrieve the highest number possible of publications by authors associated with institutions located in Rio Grande do Sul. First, we looked into the terms Brazil and Rio Grande do Sul through the advanced search option using the following expression: CU= (Brazil OR Brasil) AND PS=(RS OR RGS OR Rio Grande do Sul). Next, a more specific search strategy was employed using different expressions and names of Rio Grande do Sul research institutions and universities: OG=(name of all Rio Grande do Sul research institutions and universities). The names of Rio Grande do Sul research institutions and universities used in the search expression were obtained from the List Authorities from Brazilian Institutions, put together a few years ago by the research group (Moura, 2009; Vanz, 2009).
The search encompassed all types of documents in the 45 languages available in the database. The time filter was set for 2000-2010, and in the field reserved for choosing the citation indexes, we selected the Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index.
After clearing out inconsistent records, we found 29,560 documents published by institutions in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Because of namesakes and name varieties, authors and affiliated institutions were standardized based on Curriculo Lattes, a platform developed by CNPq, which contains the curriculum vitae of teachers, researchers and students in a standardized format. As the information is inputted by researchers themselves, Lattes allows names and institutional connections to check in quite a reliable manner.
For comparison purposes, WoS was searched in July 2011 for documents published by Brazilian authors from 2000 to 2010, using the expression: CU= (Brazil OR Brasil).
Data were organized and analyzed through bibliometric techniques and network analysis aided by Bibexcel (LTmea LTniversity), Excel 2010, and Vosviewer software.
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Results
The total number of documents published (n=29,560) per year shows the RS scientific output's growth between 2000 and 2010. However, the growth pace seems to fluctuate, remaining lower than the exponential growth between 2004 and 2006 and higher starting in 2006 up to 2009. For comparison purposes, Chart 1 shows the RS1 and Brazil's scientific output growth in WoS and the adjustment of both to the exponential growth curve ([R.sup.2] 0.9718 and [R.sup.2] 0.924, respectively).
Table 1 shows the total number of the RS and Brazilian scientific output, revealing the growth of both over the decade. With respect to the RS scientific output, gthe growth percentages in the number of indexed documents range from 2.05%--the lowest growth between 2009 and 2010--to the highest, 61.60% in 2007. The year 2006 showed negative growth compared to the previous year (-7.44%).
Except for 2006, when production dropped, the growth of RS output was constant throughout the period and higher than the Brazilian scientific production growth. In some years, suchas 2001,2003,2005,2008 e 2009, the state's growth was higher than the Brazilian growth.
The state's share in the national scientific production is about 10%, as shown in Table 1. We see the value is constant, ranging from 9.17% in 2000 to 12.9% in 2009. Those numbers seem to be linked to the expansion of the Brazilian higher and graduate education underway in the past two decades. For instance, in 1998 the number of Master's and Doctoral programs totaled 1,259. In 2009, that number rose to 2,718 (Oliveira & Almeida, 2011).
In addition, the increase both in the Brazilian and state scientific output indexed in WoS is related to the significant expansion in the number of Brazilian journals indexed by Thomson Reuters. Such expansion reached nearly 700% in one decade (Packer, 2011). The highest increase took place between 2007 and...
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