Forfas 2009 - The National Documentation Centre on Drug Use

Research Strengths in Ireland: A Bibliometric Study of the Public
Research Base
Forfás and the HEA began a study during the year designed to optimise the alignment
between publicly funded research and the enterprise base. <strong>The</strong> study is designed to paint a
national picture of research activity, assess alignment between public and private activity
and identify synergies and gaps. This will inform public policy on future investment and the
development of research supports to ensure economic value for the investment in the future.
One component of the study is a bibliometric analysis of the Irish public research base.
<strong>The</strong> bibliometric study profiled research activity and areas of existing and emerging research
strengths across the public research base. <strong>The</strong> study focused on a ten-year period (1998 to
2007) and the research disciplines were mapped with reference to discipline categories linked
to the OECD Fields of Science (FoS) Classification. <strong>The</strong> analysis and the report are based
solely on publication and citation data.
<strong>The</strong> report provides evidence of the transformation that has taken place in the research
environment in Ireland over the ten year period:
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<strong>The</strong> published output of the research base in Ireland more than doubled between 1998
and 2007 at a time when the output of G7 countries remained static. Irish research
output in 2007 was 33 per cent higher than the average for the period 2002 to 2006,
more than double the growth rate of a group of comparator countries examined. In
most of the fields of science examined, Ireland accounts for between 0.3 and 0.4 per
cent of world papers. In biological sciences, where growth is strong, its share is higher
(around 0.5 per cent) and it is higher again in agriculture (0.6 per cent) and agricultural
biotechnology (1.5 per cent). Ireland also performs well in computer science and
electronic engineering, although these areas make strong use of non-journal outputs.
Ireland’s share of world citations, at 0.64 per cent in 2007, is greater than its share of
publications (0.5) indicating above average citation impact. Whereas Ireland ranks 18 th
by volume, it ranks 8 th on citation impact and has overtaken Australia and Finland on
this measure.
At subject level, health research and physical sciences perform well in terms of citation
impact. Competition in biological sciences constrains relative performance but
agricultural biotechnology is stronger. Citation impact in physics and materials and in
chemistry is rising and nanotechnology is above average.
Inter-institutional collaboration is relatively low and collaboration with Northern
Ireland is very low compared to typical inter-institutional collaborative links in other
countries. Queens University Belfast (QUB) links to 1 per cent of output for UCD and 2
per cent for TCD whereas QUB and University of Ulster share 10 per cent of the
University of Ulster's activity. Collaboration between TCD and UCD is less than 3 per
cent.
<strong>The</strong> number of papers cited more than four times the world average is used as an
indicator of scientific excellence. 6.2 per cent of Irish papers fall into this category,
slightly ahead of the figure for the UK (6.1 per cent).