Jacqueline Leta

Science in Brazil. Part 1 : A macro-level comparative study

SummaryIn the present paper, the evolution of publication activity and citation impact in Brazil is studied for the period 1991-2003. Besides the analysis of trends in publication and citation patterns and of national publication profiles, an attempt is made to find statistical evidences of the relation between international co-authorship and both research profile and citation impact in the Latin American region. Despite similarities and strong co-publication links with the other countries in the region, Brazil has nonetheless a specific research profile, and forms the largest potential in the region.

Science in Brazil. Part 2: Sectoral and institutional research profiles

SummaryIn the present study a bibliometric meso-level analysis of Brazilian scientific research is conducted. Both sectoral and publication profile of Brazilian universities and research institutions are studied. Publication dynamics and changing profiles allow to the conclusion that powerful growth of science in Brazil goes with striking structural changes. By contrast, citation-based indicators reflect less spectacular developments.

Recognition and international collaboration: the Brazilian case

The number of Brazilian publications in the Institute for Scientific Information database, ISI, increased significantly in the last 20 years, comprising more than 1 percent of the database in the last two years. The relationship between size and recognition of Brazilian science, estimated by number of ISI-indexed publications, p, and citations, c, obeyed a power law, c = k pn. The value of n, a known indicator of such relationship was 1.42 ± 0.04, significantly higher than that found for the whole set of ISI-indexed world publications. The recent growth of Brazilian publication was not solely due to international collaboration, since over the last six years international collaboration, estimated as the percentage of Brazilian publications having at least one foreign address, reached a constant value of ca. 30%. International collaboration increased the impact of Brazilian publications. Although the most frequent collaborating countries are those that produce the largest percentage of worlds science, Brazilian collaboration with Argentina and Chile exhibit impacts comparable to the major science producers.

The contribution of women in Brazilian science: A case study in astronomy, immunology and oceanography

The performance of Brazilian male and female scientists in three scientific fields was assessed through their publications in the Science Citation Index from 1997-2001. Information on their sex and their ages, positions, and fellowship status was obtained from a census on all Brazilian scientists. The results showed that women participated most in immunology, moderately in oceanography and least in astronomy. Men and women published similar numbers of papers, and they were also of similar potential impact; they were also equally likely to collaborate internationally. Nevertheless, women were less likely than men to receive fellowships to supplement their salaries, suggesting that some sexual discrimination may still be occurring in the Brazilian peer-review process.

A new indicator for international visibility: exploring Brazilian scientific community

Brazilian science has increased fast during the last decades. An example is the increasing in the country’s share in the world’s scientific publication within the main international databases. But what is the actual weight of international publications to the whole Brazilian productivity? In order to respond this question, we have elaborated a new indicator, the International Publication Ratio (IPR). The data source was Lattes Database, a database organized by one of the main Brazilian S&T funding agency, which encompasses publication data from 1997 to 2004 of about 51,000 Brazilian researchers. Influences of distinct parameters, such as sectors, fields, career age and gender, are analyzed. We hope the data presented may help S&T managers and other S&T interests to better understand the complexity under the concept scientific productivity, especially in peripheral countries in science, such as Brazil.

A profile of science in Brazil

The Brazilian contribution to publications in science and humanities increased from 0.29% of the worldwide total in 1981 to 0.46% in 1993. In science, but not in humanities, Brazilian publications tend to follow the world publication trend; thus, during the period 1981–1993, 57.9% of Brazilian publications were in life sciences, 35.4% in exact sciences, 3.9% in earth sciences and 2.9% in humanities. The ten institutions with the largest number of publications are universities, which account for half of the all Brazilian publications. The total number of authors on the Brazilian 1981–1993 publications was 52,808. Among these 57.8% appear in only one publication and 17.5% have their publications cited more than 10 times.

Scientist-friendly policies for non-native English-speaking authors: timely and welcome

That English is the lingua franca of todays science is an indisputable fact. Publication in English in international journals is a pre-requisite for a research paper to gain visibility in academia. However, English proficiency appears to be taken for granted in the scientific community, though this language can be a hurdle for a number of authors, particularly from non-native English-speaking countries. The influence of English proficiency on the publication output of Brazilian authors has never been assessed. We report our preliminary data on the relationship between the English proficiency of 51,223 researchers registered in the CNPq database and their publication output in international journals. We have found that publication rates are higher for those authors with good command of English, particularly written English. Although our research is still underway and our results are preliminary, they suggest that the correlation between written English proficiency and research productivity should not be underestimated. We also present the comments of some Brazilian scientists with high publication records on the relevance of communication skills to the scientific enterprise.

Discussing plagiarism in Latin American science. Brazilian researchers begin to address an ethical issue

Most developed countries have extensive guidelines about research integrity, which reflects a global attempt to harmonize policies for handling research misconduct. For the editors and readers of English‐language international journals, the question of plagiarism is of particular concern. Here, we look at the perception of plagiarism among Brazilian scientists. Our results suggest that the concept of plagiarism itself is not clear: although our participants unanimously regarded the use of the ideas and data of other researchers as wrong, they had mixed opinions about using passages of text. We also found that plagiarism is a sensitive issue, which is not yet appropriately addressed by formal institutional guidelines in all Latin American countries. > …although our participants unanimously regarded the use of the ideas and data of other researchers as wrong, they had mixed opinions about using passages of text Several countries, especially in Western Europe and the USA, have been paying increasing attention to research misconduct. The US Office of Research Integrity (ORI; Rockville, MD, USA), created in 1992, and the UK Research Integrity Office, created in 2006, are just two of several initiatives addressing this problem. In the USA, increased governmental scrutiny during the 1980s and 1990s led to congressional hearings and federal policies to foster research integrity (Dingell, 1993). In 1999, the US Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP; Washington, DC, USA) determined that fabrication, falsification and plagiarism (FFP) should be the main focus of investigations into allegations of research misconduct (OSTP, 1999). According to the OSTP definition, fabrication is “making up data or results and recording or reporting them”; falsification is “manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record”; and plagiarism is “the appropriation of another persons ideas, processes, results, …

Human resources and scientific productivity in Brazil

The number of Brazilian scientific publications increased from 0.29% to 0.56% of the worldwide total during the 1981–1993 period. There was a decrease of the funds allocated to most scientific activities, except for that allocated for training of new scientists. The numbers of research fellowships and scientific publications increased at the same ratio during the period. The pattern of scientific publications and the number of fellowship granted along the years in the different fields of research were analyzed. The data presented indicate that even in a period of economic crisis, a selective investment of funds in human resources may lead to an increase of the scientific productivity of a country in all science fields.

Central international visibility of Brazilian psychiatric publications from 1981 to 1995

In this study, we examine the scientific output of Brazilian psychiatry, based on the databaseof the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), publications in the 10 most important psychiatricjournals, and publications in major Brazilian journals. The number of Brazilian publications (i.e.,those carrying at least one Brazilian address) in psychiatry in the ISI database increased by 168%during the 15-year period under study (1981-1995) . Despite this growth, the relative contributionof publications in psychiatry to the countrys publications in medical sciences did not change overthe 15-year period. This fraction, around 2%, remained at less than one-third of the averagecontribution of psychiatry journals to publications in medicine worldwide. The impact inferredfrom number of citations (1981-1992) shows that Brazilian articles in psychiatry were cited lessthan the world average in this field. In the 10 psychiatry journals with the highest impact,Brazilian authors published only 48 articles in the 1981-1995 period, representing only 0.2% ofthe articles in those journals. Like their American and British counterparts, Brazilian psychiatristsalso published primarily in domestic journals: 87.1% of the publications by Brazilians appeared inthe two major Brazilian psychiatric journals, compared with only 12.9% in foreign journals.Among publications in psychiatry in the ISI database, the number of articles co-authored byBrazilians with scientists from other countries increased 12.3 fold from 1981-1985 to 1991-1995,representing at the end 50% of all publications by Brazilian psychiatrists in international journals.Despite all cuts in funding for Brazilian science during the last decades, all of the articles in oursample originated in public universities, and only 10 universities were responsible for ∼70% of thepublications by Brazilian psychiatrists in our survey period. We conclude that Brazilianpsychiatric research is a subject worthy of particular concern, especially if we take into accountthe countrys modest scientific performance and the socio-economic consequences of mentaldisorders in the Brazilian population.