ICML 9

9º Congreso Mundial de Información en Salud y Bibliotecas

Salvador, Bahia - Brasil, 20 a 23 de septiembre de 2005

BVS4

4a. Reunión de Coordinación Regional de la BVS

19 y 20 de septiembre de 2005

P159 - Latin American scientific development: bibliometric analysis from Essential Science Indicators

Research in Biomedicine is fundamental for the scientific development of a country and necessary to improve its population’s well-being.
The analysis of the scientific productivity of a country gives information about its scientific activity and what place it takes in an international context.
Science journals are the main means of communication used by Scientists to transmit their research results. The number of documents published by an author, group of authors, institutions or countries can be considered as a quantitative indicator of their scientific productivity. On the other hand the more often an article is cited the more it is known to the international scientific community and the bigger its impact on it is.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the research performance in biomedicine in different countries of Latin America. The Essential Science Indicators (ESI)  Database, created by the Institute for Scientific Information  (Thompson ISI),  is  used as the information s ource for this study.
The ESI is a comprehensive compilation of science performance statistical data from Thomson Scientific Databases. The use of this analytic tool enables us to classify and analyse the research performance of each Latin American countries, this database also allows us to rank top countries and institutions.