Abstract
We analyse the productivity of academic knowledge in all fields of science within Ibero-American and Caribbean countries between 1966 and 2013. We provide the growth constants for the number of publications (ρ), the number of publications per million inhabitants (σ) and the ratio between the number of publications and the GDP per capita (λ) for 30 countries. We generalise a mathematical model developed by the author to explain the dynamics of co-authorship networks. We show that the evolution of the self-organising scientific networks depends on the mathematical function, which describes the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) researchers against time. We test the generalised model with 25 co-authorship networks related with the major regional producers (Spain, Brazil, Portugal, Mexico and Argentina) between 1973 and 2013. The obtained values for the determination coefficients (R 2) between the number of co-publications and the curves predicted by the generalised model show excellent fittings (in 72 % of the cases, R 2 > 0.99; in 16 %, R 2 > 0.98; in 8 %, R 2 > 0.97 and within the remaining 4 %, R 2 > 0.96).
This work and the information contains within is the responsibility of the author and is not necessarily the opinion of UNESCO. The designations employed and the presentation of material do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, area, or its authorities, or the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.
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Notes
- 1.
The countries included here for analysis within the Ibero-American and Caribbean region are: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Plurinational State of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Spain, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Thomas, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, Uruguay, and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. These countries were studied to estimate the total number of regional publications per year (1966–2013). A number of nations were excluded from the study: Puerto Rico (with 18,442 publications over the period) because it is a territory of the United States, French Guiana (with a total number of 1,179 publications over the period), and the Caribbean colonial states (Anguilla, Aruba, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Curaçao, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Montserrat, Saint Martin, and Turks and Caicos). Most of the smaller Caribbean islands had no mainstream scientific publications during this period.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) through the UNESCO extrabudgetary project 503GLO2002.
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Lemarchand, G.A. (2016). The Scientific Productivity and the Dynamics of Self-organizing Networks: Ibero-American and Caribbean Countries (1966–2013). In: Horta, H., Heitor, M., Salmi, J. (eds) Trends and Challenges in Science and Higher Education. Knowledge Studies in Higher Education, vol 3. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20964-7_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20964-7_2
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