Study and Evaluation of Quantitative and Qualitative Growth of Scientific Outputs of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Assistant Professor. Knowledge and information science , Policy evaluation and Monitoring of Science, Technology, and Innovation Department, National Research Institute for Science Policy, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Purpose: Recognizing the current situation in scientific outputs and appropriate policies to improve the scientific quantitative and qualitative levels significantly impact the country's scientific production level. This study intends to pay attention to other indicators besides the number of publications and citations in order to obtain a more comprehensive view of the simultaneous or asynchronous growth of the quantity and quality of scientific research in Iran.
Methodology: This research is applied in terms of purpose; In terms of approach, it is quantitative and in terms of data collection method, it is into the category of descriptive research. This study tries to evaluate the quantitative and qualitative growth of scientific outputs of the Islamic Republic of Iran during the years 2010 to 2021 with a scientometric approach and related indicators.
Findings: The findings of this study indicate that in the period between 2010 and 2021, the total number of Iranian articles indexed in Web of Science increased by 1.5 times; the country's share of the world's published articles in Web of Science by 1.9 times; per capita citations to the country's articles by 1.7 times; The number of highly cited researchers in the country increased by 12.3 times; the H index of the country increased by 4 times; the number of highly cited articles also increased by 10 times; and the percentage of articles published in Q1 journals increased by 1.9 times, and the weighted average index of citation impact also increased by 1.6 times. The number of journals indexed in the SJR database has increased by 2.3 times between 2010 and 2021. The number of Q1 journals (based on the impact factor of SJR) belonging to Iran has grown by 3.5 times in these years. The average impact factor of journals based on SJR information has also experienced a growth of 2.1 times. The SNIP index or the standardized influence coefficient based on the source for Iran has also grown 1.7 times. Based on the data analysis, it was found that the correlation coefficient of the total number of articles published on the Web of Science with the number of highly cited researchers is 0.903, and the assumption of a significant relationship between these two variables is confirmed. Calculating the correlation coefficient of the total number of articles with the country's share of the world's published articles shows a number of 0.974, and confirms the relationship between these two variables. The calculation correlation coefficient for the total number of articles with the H index of the country in the studied period, which is 0.964, indicates the existence of a relationship between these two variables. The variable correlation coefficient of the total number of articles with the number of highly cited articles in the country with a rate of 0.942 indicates the existence of a relationship between the two.
Calculating the correlation coefficient of the total number of articles with the variable of the percentage of articles published in Q1 journals showed a number of 0.789 and confirms the existence of a relationship between these two variables. Paying attention to the correlation coefficient of the total number of articles and the percentage of international collaborations, at the rate of 0.925, indicates the existence of a strong relationship between these two variables. And finally, the correlation coefficient of the total number of articles with the weighted average of the citation effect shows a number of 0.991, which indicates a strong relationship between these two variables during the years under study. Based on the Pearson correlation coefficient test, the relationship between the variable "number of journals indexed in SJR" and "number of Q1 journals" was 0.792. Examining the relationship between the variable numbers of journals indexed in SJR with the average impact factor of journals shows the number 0.940 and confirms the relationship between these two variables. Examining the relationship between the variable number of journals indexed in SJR with the SNIP index or the standardized impact factor based on the source shows the number 0.894 and confirms the relationship between these variables.
Conclusion: What is important is the extraordinary increase in the index of the number of highly cited researchers in the country as one of the main components of quality in the production of science. It can be concluded that the qualitative growth of the country's scientific outputs has surpassed its quantitative growth. Maintaining and planning to strengthen and continue this process is necessary, as well as the necessary use of other components and indicators of research effectiveness.

Keywords

References

 

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