**2. Methodology**

The article results from a scientometric study through the analyses of bibliographic indicators extracted from recognized databases, described below. International collaboration and other indicators were obtained through the survey of InCites platform, a fully integrated Web of Science (WoS) database. This analytic tool is under the responsibility of former Thomson Reuters (now Clarivate Analytics), Philadelphia/USA, available through institutional subscription and internal access in the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES).

**97**

**Figure 1.**

*Contrasting High Scientific Production with Low International Collaboration and Scientific…*

The InCites Platform is composed of several other databases. In this study, we selected the Essential Sciences Indicators (ESI), which classifies scientific production in 22 areas of knowledge. Bibliographical data in these areas of ESI include articles and reviews of the Science Citation Index Expanded and the Social Science Citation Index, but do not include the indexed papers of Arts and Humanities, Conference Proceedings Citation Index, and Book Citation Index. ESI is part of the InCites platform and a filter for large areas of knowledge, making it easier to compare them. Each journal that makes up the ESI database is classified in only one area, with no overlap of subjects, or double counting of articles between areas. When the journal is classified as multidisciplinary (as science or nature, for instance), the system makes a disambiguation of the theme of an article by the topics of the journals cited in this one, so if the article published in one of these journals refers to a certain theme, the references will confirm in which of the 22 areas the article in question will be indexed. Except for the accumulated data shown in **Figure 1** and **Table 1** where the numbers started in the trimester 1981–1983, the present study covered a period of 17 years (between 2000 and 2016). The data were

*Brazilian scientific production: accumulated number of articles and citations. Source: InCites dataset updated* 

*2017-10-14. Includes Web of Science content indexed through 2017-10-3.*

downloaded and worked with Excel listing the following indicators:

2.Times cited: Number of citations received during the period.

citations by the total number of publications in the period.

the impact of a country is higher than the average of all countries [14].

proceeding papers, and reviews.

documents in the period.

1.Articles or documents: Number of published papers, including articles, full

3.% Documents cited: percentage of cited documents as a fraction of total

4.Citation impact: Average number of citations received by the publications (or area) in a given period. It is the result of the division of the total number of

5.Impact relative to world (IRW): It concerns to the impact of an area or country relative to the world's average impact of that area or the average of all countries together. An IRW index greater than 1.0 indicates that impact in a specific area or country is larger than the average impact of all areas together and, in the case of countries, that

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.85825*

*Contrasting High Scientific Production with Low International Collaboration and Scientific… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.85825*

**Figure 1.**

*Scientometrics Recent Advances*

important to have a good production and impact but to have the capacity to become a mediator or link in establishing collaboration between the countries participating in the productive research network. In this way, the research groups from the less developed countries that make this communication bridge increase their capacities to absorb resources have access to new technologies and resources at high-technology laboratories, thus increasing the quality of their results. The observations derived from the studies with BRICS and Latin American countries were confirmed in our work with actualized data showing, once again, that either for historical, cultural, or economic reasons, scientific collaboration and consequently the development of the member countries of these groups will not occur as a result of intragroup collaboration, but instead, mainly with the most productive countries. Furthermore, despite the recognized advantages of international cooperation, we have shown in a previous article [14] that countries that have not prepared themselves to exploit the opportunities offered by international collaboration do not internalize these advantages for

As compared to previous studies, in the present work, we explore several new aspects, including (i) a much longer and recent studied period, (ii) the evolution of Brazilian scientific productivity and of its most significant areas, (iii) correlation between the number of graduate programs and the number of research groups, and (iv) correlation between international collaboration and citation impact of the 35 countries with high scientific productivity. Thus, the aim of the present work is to demonstrate the influence of international collaboration on the scientific impact generated by the citations in four aspects: (a) in the comparison between the 35 most productive countries, a small group of countries (about 17% of the world countries listed in the ESI database), which includes Brazil, that produce 92% of the world publications; (b) comparing Brazil with the most productive Latin American countries; (c) the position of Brazil among the countries of the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), and (d) contrasting Brazil's low international cooperation and consequent lower scientific impact with its recognized technological performance in several applied fields such as tropical agriculture, technology for exploiting petroleum resources in deep sea water, woodland recovery of once infertile land ("cerrados"), cellulose and paper mill industry, sophisticated bank automation, construction of alcohol-propelled motor vehicles, aircraft design, and industrial production, among others [15]. The study uses comparative analysis among the most productive countries. For this purpose, data were collected on the scientific performance of the countries in the 22 areas of the Essential Science Indicators (ESI), where all countries listed in the InCites database (Thomson Reuters 2016) are represented. It is important to note that the metrics used in InCites, although not frequently used in Brazil, are widely recognized for comparative studies. According to Bornmann and Leydesdorf [16] with InCites, it is possible to study the impact and the citation behavior of countries using a time window for a long period of publications, thus allowing

their own best technical-scientific and economic benefit.

to compare areas with normalized indicators in an efficient manner.

The article results from a scientometric study through the analyses of bibliographic indicators extracted from recognized databases, described below.

the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES).

International collaboration and other indicators were obtained through the survey of InCites platform, a fully integrated Web of Science (WoS) database. This analytic tool is under the responsibility of former Thomson Reuters (now Clarivate Analytics), Philadelphia/USA, available through institutional subscription and internal access in

**96**

**2. Methodology**

*Brazilian scientific production: accumulated number of articles and citations. Source: InCites dataset updated 2017-10-14. Includes Web of Science content indexed through 2017-10-3.*

The InCites Platform is composed of several other databases. In this study, we selected the Essential Sciences Indicators (ESI), which classifies scientific production in 22 areas of knowledge. Bibliographical data in these areas of ESI include articles and reviews of the Science Citation Index Expanded and the Social Science Citation Index, but do not include the indexed papers of Arts and Humanities, Conference Proceedings Citation Index, and Book Citation Index. ESI is part of the InCites platform and a filter for large areas of knowledge, making it easier to compare them. Each journal that makes up the ESI database is classified in only one area, with no overlap of subjects, or double counting of articles between areas. When the journal is classified as multidisciplinary (as science or nature, for instance), the system makes a disambiguation of the theme of an article by the topics of the journals cited in this one, so if the article published in one of these journals refers to a certain theme, the references will confirm in which of the 22 areas the article in question will be indexed. Except for the accumulated data shown in **Figure 1** and **Table 1** where the numbers started in the trimester 1981–1983, the present study covered a period of 17 years (between 2000 and 2016). The data were downloaded and worked with Excel listing the following indicators:



*Comparison of the two distant triennials: 1981–1983 and 2014–2016. Source: exported date 2017-10-13. InCites dataset updated 2017-09-23. Includes Web of Science content indexed through 2017-07-31.*

### **Table 1.**

*Growth of the Brazilian scientific production of all ESI areas.*
