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A novel methodology to assess the scientific standing of nations at field level

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  • Abramo, Giovanni
  • D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea

Abstract

The formulation of national research policies would benefit greatly from reliable strategic analysis of the scientific infrastructure, aimed at identifying the relevant strengths and weaknesses at field level. Bibliometric methodologies thus far proposed in the literature are not completely satisfactory. This work proposes a novel “output-to-input-oriented” approach, which permits identification of research strengths and weaknesses on the basis of the ratios of top scientists and highly cited articles to research expenditures in each field. The proposed approach is applied to the Italian academic system. 2012–2016 scientific publications are analyzed, in the 218 research fields where bibliometric assessment is appropriate.

Suggested Citation

  • Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2020. "A novel methodology to assess the scientific standing of nations at field level," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:14:y:2020:i:1:s1751157719302743
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2019.100986
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2016. "A farewell to the MNCS and like size-independent indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 646-651.
    2. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2014. "Assessing national strengths and weaknesses in research fields," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 766-775.
    3. Bornmann, Lutz & Leydesdorff, Loet & Walch-Solimena, Christiane & Ettl, Christoph, 2011. "Mapping excellence in the geography of science: An approach based on Scopus data," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 537-546.
    4. Lutz Bornmann & Loet Leydesdorff, 2011. "Which cities produce more excellent papers than can be expected? A new mapping approach, using Google Maps, based on statistical significance testing," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(10), pages 1954-1962, October.
    5. Emanuel Kulczycki & Tim C. E. Engels & Janne Pölönen & Kasper Bruun & Marta Dušková & Raf Guns & Robert Nowotniak & Michal Petr & Gunnar Sivertsen & Andreja Istenič Starčič & Alesia Zuccala, 2018. "Publication patterns in the social sciences and humanities: evidence from eight European countries," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(1), pages 463-486, July.
    6. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo, 2014. "How do you define and measure research productivity?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(2), pages 1129-1144, November.
    7. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Tindaro Cicero, 2012. "What is the appropriate length of the publication period over which to assess research performance?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 93(3), pages 1005-1017, December.
    8. Ciriaco Andrea D'Angelo & Cristiano Giuffrida & Giovanni Abramo, 2011. "A heuristic approach to author name disambiguation in bibliometrics databases for large-scale research assessments," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(2), pages 257-269, February.
    9. Sandström, Ulf & Van den Besselaar, Peter, 2018. "Funding, evaluation, and the performance of national research systems," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 365-384.
    10. Ciriaco Andrea D'Angelo & Cristiano Giuffrida & Giovanni Abramo, 2011. "A heuristic approach to author name disambiguation in bibliometrics databases for large‐scale research assessments," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(2), pages 257-269, February.
    11. Martin, Ben R. & Irvine, John, 1993. "Assessing basic research : Some partial indicators of scientific progress in radio astronomy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 106-106, April.
    12. David A. King, 2004. "The scientific impact of nations," Nature, Nature, vol. 430(6997), pages 311-316, July.
    13. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Murgia, Gianluca, 2013. "The collaboration behaviors of scientists in Italy: A field level analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 442-454.
    14. Robert J W Tijssen, 2003. "Scoreboards of research excellence," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(2), pages 91-103, August.
    15. Robert J. W. Tijssen & Martijn S. Visser & Thed N. van Leeuwen, 2002. "Benchmarking international scientific excellence: Are highly cited research papers an appropriate frame of reference?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 54(3), pages 381-397, July.
    16. Jonathan Adams, 1998. "Benchmarking international research," Nature, Nature, vol. 396(6712), pages 615-618, December.
    17. Abramo, Giovanni, 2018. "Revisiting the scientometric conceptualization of impact and its measurement," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 590-597.
    18. Abramo, Giovanni & Cicero, Tindaro & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2013. "Individual research performance: A proposal for comparing apples to oranges," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 528-539.
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    1. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo, 2021. "A bibliometric methodology to unveil territorial inequities in the scientific wealth to combat COVID-19," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(8), pages 6601-6624, August.
    2. Hiran H. Lathabai & Abhirup Nandy & Vivek Kumar Singh, 2021. "x-index: Identifying core competency and thematic research strengths of institutions using an NLP and network based ranking framework," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(12), pages 9557-9583, December.
    3. Gerson Pech & Catarina Delgado, 2020. "Assessing the publication impact using citation data from both Scopus and WoS databases: an approach validated in 15 research fields," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 909-924, November.

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