Agronomy researchers and research scholars in Brazil: Gender, scientific age, scientific production and impact, and training of human resources

ABSTRACT

Transparency of evaluation criteria and monitoring recommendations for research grants require careful judgment and frequent reassessment of guiding parameters. The aim of this study is to inform the scientific community and funding agencies about the applicants profile for research productivity grants (PQ) in the field of Agronomy of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), and to contribute to the analysis of grant distribution using the grant applicants of the 2018 call as a study sample. The data registered in the Lattes Curriculum platform were used to quantify the scientific production index. This index considers the number of published articles with different weights for the different segments of the journal’s impact factor values, in addition to the number of patents and books, and human resources training index that considers the number of supervisions and their level (scientific initiation, master’s, doctorate and post-doctorate) completed as principal advisor. The H index (ISI-Web of Science base and Scopus base), scientific age (equal to the number of years after doctorate thesis defense), and the m index (H index divided by scientific age) were also considered, as well as the gender of the fellows. The results show that more than three quarters (75.8 %) of Agronomy PQ fellows are male. At the Category 1 levels and on the Agronomy Committee itself, the relative participation of female researchers is even lower. Women are more involved in human resource training, publish more in non-JCR journals, and are older (scientific age) at the lower level of fellow and among candidates, while men have greater scientific production, H and m indices, and m increase as scientific age advances. The indices of scientific production and human resources training, and national/international insertion (H index) are not homogeneous within the same level/category, despite the search for more transparent and verifiable evaluation indices/indicators. There are fewer opportunities for success and advancement for women, which characterizes a space for achieving gender equity. Objective, easily calculated indices/indicators are absolutely necessary for a large number of researchers, while the critical evaluation and the search for more such parameters must move forward and be compatible with the peer-review process. We suggest that CNPq collect data on citations to Google Scholar and, in particular, share information on gender and interruptions due to illness, maternity and paternity, and care for the sick, elderly or dependent.

agro/soil scientometrics; research productivity grant; scientific quality; science evaluation; female scientists