Scientific impact increases when researchers publish in open access and international collaboration: A bibliometric analysis on poverty-related disease papers

PLoS One. 2018 Sep 19;13(9):e0203156. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0203156. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

Background: The European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), like many other research funders, requires its grantees to make papers available via open access (OA). This article investigates the effect of publishing in OA journals and international collaboration within and between European and sub-Saharan African countries on citation impact and likelihood of falling into the top 1% and top 10% most cited papers in poverty-related disease (PRD) research.

Methods: Disease-specific research publications were identified in the Web of Science™ and MEDLINE using Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms. Data on the open accessibility of scientific literature were derived from 1science oaFindr. Publication data, including relative citation counts, were extracted for 2003-2015. Regression models were applied to quantify the relationship between relative citations and presence in the 1% and top 10% most cited papers versus OA and international collaboration.

Results: The results show that since 2003 papers on PRDs have become increasingly available in OA. Among all PRD areas, malaria research is most frequently published in OA and in international collaboration. The adjusted regression analyses show that holding other factors constant, publishing research in OA and in international collaboration has a significant and meaningful citation advantage over non-OA or non-international collaborative research. Publishing papers as part of a European-wide or European- sub-Saharan African collaboration increases research impact. In contrast, such collaboration advantage is not observed for research output involving sub-Saharan Africa only which seems to decrease research impact.

Conclusions: Our results indicate that there is a real, measurable citation advantage for publishing PRD research in OA and international collaboration. However, the international collaboration advantage seems to be region-specific with increased research impact for European-wide and European-sub-Saharan African collaborations but a decrease in research impact of collaborations confined to sub-Saharan African research institutions. Further research is required to further verify this finding and to understand the underlying factors related to this observed decrease in research impact. To target future research capacity building activities in sub-Saharan Africa it is important to assess whether the observed decreased impact reflects the scientific competencies and geographic distribution of individual researchers or institutional-, national- or funder-specific research requirements.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Africa South of the Sahara
  • Bibliometrics
  • Databases, Bibliographic
  • Developing Countries
  • Disease*
  • Europe
  • Humans
  • Internationality
  • Journal Impact Factor
  • Open Access Publishing*
  • Poverty*
  • Regression Analysis
  • Research Personnel

Grants and funding

The second EDCTP (EDCTP2) programme is part of the European Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon 2020 and is implemented by the EDCTP-Association as outlined in the delegation agreement that was signed between the European Union, represented by the European Commission, and the EDCTP Association under Decision 556/2014/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014. The funding organization (i.e., the European Commission) did not play a role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Through the delegation agreement, financial support was provided in the form of salaries for authors JGB and MMM. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section. Following a competitive tender process the commercial company Science-Metrix, an independent research evaluation firm specializing in the assessment of science and technology (S&T) activities, was awarded a contract with the EDCTP-association to conduct a bibliometric analysis of publications on poverty-related and neglected infectious diseases published by European and African researchers between 2003 and 2015. Data collection, enrichment and analysis undertaken during the course of that contract were recuperated for the purpose of preparing this manuscript. Science-Metrix did not play a role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of this manuscript. Financial support was provided by Science-Metrix for the manuscript preparation (over and above the contracted study) in the form of salaries for CT, GR, MD and DBS. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.