Scientific relations between Spain and central-Eastern European countries for the period 1982–1992
This paper analyzes the scientific relationships between Spain and the Eastern European countries (EEc), including the former USSR, from 1982 to 1992. The study considers the number of co-authored papers as well as the number of stays which reflect to the exchange of scientists among them. The total number of co-authored papers of Spanish scientists with their colleagues of those countries is 664 as recorded in theScience Citation Index. During the last three years, a significative increase in the number of co-signed papers has been observed. From the sample considered, the percentage of bilateral and multilateral co-authored papers is 43.8 and 56.2 respectively. In absolute figures, USSR and Poland are the countries with highest number of collaborative papers with Spain. However, in relation to their scientific output, Poland and Hungary show a higher percentage of co-authored papers than the rest of EEc. On the other hand, previous data, provided by the Spanish Secretary of State for Research and Universities (SEUI), related to the flow of scientists on sabbatical year to and from Spain,1 showed that from 1984 to 1994, a total of 213 researches come from the EEc to Spain, while the number of Spanish scientists going to those countries was extremely scarce.
The contribution of European community less favoured region research outputs to economic and social cohesion
Data are presented on the scientific output from 1985–92 of the Less Favoured Regions (LFRs) of the European Community as recorded in theScience Citation Index. The use of postcodes makes it easier to identify papers from LFRs and they are now nearly universal (over 95%). LFR output has grown since 1985 from 5% to nearly 8% of the EC total, and there is much more trans-national co-authorship between ones in different countries though it is still at a low level. There is also increasing co-publication between scientists from LFRs and the rest of the EC (More Favoured Regions, MFRs), both within the same countries and trans-nationally. Selective retrieval of papers by their address keywords shows that the LFRs are relatively strong in the physical, rather than the life, sciences and that the major areas of growth in recent years have been engineering, earth/space sciences and physics.
Evaluation of recent scientific research output by a bibliometric method
Describes a new method of evaluation of scientific output by laboratories engaged in diverse fields of research. This method helps to evaluate those outputs which are quite recent and not amenable to citation analysis. For the purpose of analysis, impact factor of journals in which papers are published are considered. A method for normalisation of impact factor of journals has been described and, normalised impact factors have also been used for the purpose of analysis. It is found that in such analysis normalised impact factor tends to show better results compared to simple impact factor. The analysis helps us to generate numerous performance indicators such as average impact factor and normalised impact factor for each laboratory and the research complex such as CSIR as a whole; average impact factor and normalised impact factor for each scientist of a laboratory and the research complex; spectral distribution of papers falling within various ranges of impact factors and normalised impact factors. By comparing the performances over several years the trend of research activity of each laboratory can also be obtained.