Visibility and impact of the Cuban dental scientific output, Scopus 1995-2017

Abstract

Aim: To identify the differences between Cuban scientific research published in highly visible journals and the rest of the national dental scientific output. Materials and Methods: A bibliometric analysis was conducted using 1995-2017 data from the Scopus data-base. The following search strategy was used: country (Cuba), subject area (dentistry), publication source (Journals), article type (Original Research, Review Article). Bibliometric indicators of output, visibility, leadership, collaboration and impact were examined. Result: 521 articles were published in 21 Journals, of which 20 are international and 13 are within the first quartile (Q1), led by Clinical Oral Implants Research. There was a prevalence of Spanish language publications, without collaboration, and in Revista Cubana de Estomatología. The Cuban scientific leadership significantly diminishes in the journals located in the highest visibility quartile (Q1) (p=0.0144). The high dependency of citation-based indicators, as well as international collaboration, in rela-tion to the journals’ quartile, was confirmed. Conclusion: The national scientific output in first quartile journals that has the biggest influence on the scientific international community is dependent on international collaboration to reach high levels of visibility and impact, and the national scientific output is not still able to systematically generate research that impacts in a significant way the scientific international community.

Visibility, collaboration and impact of the Cuban scientific output on COVID-19 in Scopus

“…The fact that the Medical University of Havana and the University of Havana are among the most productive institutions has been reported previously [50,56] and could be related to the large number of faculties they have, as well as the number of teachers and undergraduate and graduate students linked to the fight against the pandemic. It is important to highlight that most of the attending physicians are also professors at different universities, this is why they declare them to be one of their affiliations.…”

“…This may be due to the fact that there is a predilection for publication in national journals, which are located in lower quartiles of visibility in Scopus. [48,50] It is important to prioritize publication in multilingual journals. Thus, more actions are needed to urgently transform this situation.…”

“…As the visibility of the journals increases according to the quartiles where they are placed, the percentage of both articles published in English and cited articles increases, but Cuban scientific leadership decreases. This may be due to the fact that there is a predilection for publication in national journals, which are located in lower quartiles of visibility in Scopus [ 48 , 50 ]. It is important to prioritize publication in multilingual journals.…”

“…This work could serve to clarify the leadership aspect of research. [50] International collaboration reaches its maximum expression in the first quartile, where a little more than half of the articles were published with foreign researchers. It might be possible that most Cuban researchers and managers depend on international collaboration to publish in journals of maximum visibility and in English, which has been reported previously.…”

“…It might be possible that most Cuban researchers and managers depend on international collaboration to publish in journals of maximum visibility and in English, which has been reported previously. [48,[50][51][52] It is necessary to promote international scientific collaboration in order to favor visibility and impact of the research developed. The strategies to follow can be generated at an Although it is recognized that it is soon to evaluate the impact of articles through the received citations, it is already possible to observe that those published in journals belonging to the quartiles of higher visibility (Q1 and Q2) have had an impact on the scientific community and the implications of their results are considered by other authors, since their average number of citations is much higher than that observed in those published in less visible journals (Q3, Q4 and non-ranked).…”