Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Collaboration in science among Latin American countries

2007; Spanish National Research Council; Volume: 30; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Espanhol

10.3989/redc.2007.v30.i2.378

1988-4621

Jane M. Russell, Shirley Ainsworth, J. A. del Rı́o, N. Narváez-Berthelemot, Héctor D. Cortés,

Academic Publishing and Open Access

An analysis of the scientific collaboration among Latin American countries registered between 1975 and 2004 in the Science Citation Index database, Web of Science online version, revealed a steady increase in the number of publications, more marked in the last decade, as well as in the percentages that these represent in the total number of publications authored by regional scientists.Differences were found between countries in the magnitude of these increases, the smaller countries showing the highest levels of collaboration, especially with respect to those publications also involving scientists from institutions outside the Latin American region.The most common subject areas of intra-regional collaboration were Biology, Health, Physics, and Chemistry.Participating institutions from outside the region in intra-regional co-authorship were most commonly European (40% of cases) and North American (38%).The impact of papers as measured by a normalized h-index, involving scientists from outside the region was greater than that found for all intra-regional publications.The dominant bilateral regional collaboration was between Brazil and Argentina which in recent years has focused on topics in the Health Sciences and Astronomy.A detailed analysis of Physics papers showed that institutions from Brazil and Argentina are the most productive in intra-regional collaborations and Condensed Matter, the most studied subject.