Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
Summer 7-2019
Abstract
Purpose: This study analyzes and highlights the research productivity and the trend in the top fields of “Life sciences and Biomedicine”.
Methods: The data were collected from Clarivate Analytic’s “Web of Science” for a period of 10 years (2006-2016). The search was further refined to the top 10 fields in the field of “Life Sciences and Biomedicine”. The data were downloaded on the following parameters: “author productivity”, “country contribution”, “organisational involvement”, “funding agencies”, “publication year”, “most preferred document type” and “language”.
Findings: No consistent growth is observed in the research activities pertinent to the fields of “Life sciences and Biomedicine”. Among the studied fields, “Neurosciences and Neurology” is in lead with “2016” as the most productive year. Research in “Life sciences and Biomedicine” is quantitatively dominated by the “USA”, followed by the “England” and “Japan”. Authors have mostly reported their findings in the form of “Research articles” and “English” as a language of publication has remained a dominant medium of communication. Furthermore, it is also observed that “National Institute of Health (NIH)” and “National Natural Science Foundation of China” are the top funders across all the fields with “Harvard University”, “Chinese Academy of Science” and “University Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre” as the leading organizations in terms of contribution.
Limitations: However, more research would have been published across other indexing and abstracting services, but the results of the study are confined to the data indexed by “Web of Science”.
Research implications: The study may serve as a summary of global history on “Life sciences and Biomedicine” research and a potential basis for future research.