Countries emerging as major scientific powers

EDITORIAL

Countries emerging as major scientific powers

Milton Artur Ruiz

Editor in Chief, Revista Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia

^{Corresponding author}

The last issue emphasized the changes taking place in the Revista Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia (RBHH) and discussed the reasons that the Associação Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia (ABHH) and her two sister societies decided to internationalize the journal.^(1-3) It was pointed out that one of the primary reasons for this was the new Qualis classification by the Brazilian further education council (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Capes). In several articles, editors of many Brazilian journals voiced their unanimous disagreement at the use of just the Thomson-Reuters impact factor in the preparation of this new classification.^(4,5)

The impact factor has long been used inappropriately to assess the productivity of individual researchers and professors and consequently in academic decisions related to promotion. Thus, several reports exorcise the Thomson-Reuters impact factor and recommend that other indices, such as those of SCImago and SciELO, should also be used in the classification of scientific journals.^(6,7) This is justified and so the objective of the Brazilian editors was to valorize national production and Brazilian journals.

In June, Crossref Quarterly, the e-letter of one of the institutions that attribute Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to scientific publications on the internet, reported on the Brazilian evolution over the last two years in respect to the number of requests for DOIs.⁽⁸⁾ Crossref cites Brazil because of the recent increase in membership; the RBHH is one of these new members.

Another article from the Royal Society entitled "Knowledge, Networks and Nations: Global scientific collaboration in the 21^st century" identifies the new emerging countries of great scientific power led by China and including Brazil and also throws light on the growing scientific production of countries that are not normally mentioned such as Iran, Turkey and Tunisia.⁽⁹⁾

China is now the second highest producer of scholarship articles worldwide and the fourth in medicine.⁽¹⁰⁾ Eleven years ago it was the nineteenth in the ranking of SCImago in medicine, that is, behind Brazil which was the seventeenth (Table 1). China's contribution has accompanied its intense economic progress that has been observed over the last fifteen years.

Albeit not so evident, a similar evolution has happened number giving a larger slice of the share in these years (Figure 1). Today, both in general publications and in medicine, we are in the thirteenth position according to the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR - Table 1).

And how is the production of Hematology? Table 2 is the cumulated publications from 1996 to 2010. In 2009 and 2010 there was intense and comparable production in Italy, the UK and Germany; these countries produced the highest number of articles after the USA. Between 1999 and 2009 China climbed from the twenty-fifth place to the seventh place giving it an aggregate position of thirteenth in 2010 (Table 2).

In the same period, Brazil moved from twenty-fourth to fourteenth position and its aggregate position for 1996 to 2010 is eighteenth. This is important but it is even more significant if we look at the production of Brazil in 2010 when it is in the twelfth position and not so far behind countries such as Australia and Spain (Table 3).

However we can improve as is clear on comparing the percentage of production in hematology in respect to the overall production of documents in Medicine. Table 4 is a simple comparison of evolution of randomly chosen years of the countries that lead aggregate ranking in Hematology as well as China and Brazil. What is observed is that every year the percentage contribution of the USA and Italy in the field of hematology compared to its overall scientific production in medicine is higher than China and Brazil which shows we can and should improve.

At this point we should emphasize that the RBHH has an important role in the evolution of hematology in Brazil; it is publishing most of the citable and cited documents which make up the score of the ranking of the SJR.

These data can be challenged or considered irrelevant, but should be viewed as a stimulus; an encouragement to continue with changes to transform the Revista Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia.

Submitted: 7/9/2011

Accepted: 7/10/2011

www.rbhh.org or www.scielo.br/rbhh

• 1. de Souza CA. The evolution of the "Revista Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia" to meet the challenges of a new era. Rev Bras Hematol Hemoter. 2011;33(1):1-2.
• 2. Dulley FL. A new era, a new journal. Rev Bras Hematol Hemoter. 2011;33(1):3.
• 3. Maiolino A. The AIBE and the new phase of the RBHH. Rev Bras Hematol Hemoter. 2011;33(1):3.
• 4. Brazilian Editors of Scientific Magazine. Changes in the criteria of Qualis. Rev Bras Hematol Hemoter. 2010;32(3):189-91.
• 5. Brazilian Editors of Scientific Magazine. Journal classification in the Qualis/Capes System - a change is urgently required. Rev Bras Hematol Hemoter. 2010;32(1):1-3.
• 6. Ruiz MA, Greco OT, Braile DM. Journal impact factor: this editorial, academic and scientific influence. Rev Bras Cir Cardiovasc. 2009;24(3):273-8.
• 7. Rocha e Silva M. Reflexões críticas sobre os três erres nos periódicos brasileiros excluídos. Clinics. 2011;33(1):3-7.
• ⁸
  Crossref Quarterly [cited 2011 Jun 14]. Available at: http://www.crossref.org/10quarterly/quarterly.html#exec_dir_ltr
  » link
• 9. Royal Society. Knowledge, networks and nations: Global scientific collaboration in the 21st century. [cited 2011 Jun 14]. Available at: http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/Influencing_Policy/Reports/2011-03-28-Knowledge-networksnations.pdf
• 10. Scimago (2007). Scimago Journal & Country Rank. [cited 2011 Jun 08]. Available at: http://www.scimagojr.com

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  27 July 2011
• Date of issue
  June 2011