Sci-Bytes> Science in Italy, 2006-10
Week of September 4, 2011
Italy’s world share of science and social-science papers over a recent five-year period, expressed as a percentage of papers in each of 21 fields in the Thomson Reuters database. Also, Italy’s relative citation impact compared to the world average in each field, in percentage terms.
| Field | % papers fr. Italy | Impact vs. world |
|---|---|---|
| Space Science | 10.94 | +28 |
| Neuroscience & Behavior | 5.99 | -3 |
| Mathematics | 5.47 | +11 |
| Clinical Medicine | 5.46 | +30 |
| Geosciences | 5.42 | +8 |
| Pharmacology & Toxicology | 5.20 | +10 |
| Physics | 5.15 | +25 |
| Immunology | 4.95 | -1 |
| Molecular Biology & Genetics | 4.67 | +4 |
| Engineering | 4.40 | +6 |
| Computer Science | 4.40 | -6 |
| Italy's overall percent share, all fields: 4.40 | ||
| Biology & Biochemistry | 4.19 | -4 |
| Agricultural Sciences | 4.09 | +24 |
| Plant & Animal Science | 3.78 | -4 |
| Environment/Ecology | 3.60 | +1 |
| Chemistry | 3.45 | +13 |
| Economics & Business | 3.35 | -19 |
| Microbiology | 3.31 | -8 |
| Psychiatry/Psychology | 2.57 | -5 |
| Materials Science | 2.40 | +15 |
| Social Sciences | 1.44 | -1 |
Between 2006 and 2010, Thomson Reuters indexed 237,713 papers that listed at least one author address in Italy. Of those papers, the highest percentage by far appeared in journals indexed under the main heading of space science, followed by neuroscience & behavior and mathematics. As the right-hand column shows, the impact (cites per paper) score for space-science papers featuring Italy-based authors was 28% above the world average in the field (10.06 cites per paper for Italy versus the world mark of 7.88 cites). Italy’s relative-impact performance was also strong in clinical medicine (30% above the world figure), physics (25% above), and agricultural sciences (+24%).
SOURCE: InCitesTM Global Comparisons, Thomson Reuters.
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