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The influence of European Framework Programmes on scientific collaboration in nanotechnology

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Abstract

This study deals primarily with the effect of certain European Framework Programmes on EU-27 member states’ publication output in nanotechnology, with a focus on their scientific collaboration over the last ten years. The study was conducted at three levels (category, journal and publication). The aim was to verify whether the newly launched category is sufficiently complete, as well as to identify the most prominent journals and compare the EU-27 member states’ output to world production. Snapshots of European networking are also provided for three key dates (2001, 2006 and 2011) to ascertain the positions of emerging and central countries and analyse their variations over time. The results confirm the speedy development in the field and the importance of the EU-27s world role. They corroborate the close correlation between funding and increased output and the intensification of collaboration among member states. Finally, the information contained in the “Funding Agency” field in the Web of Science database was also compiled, with a view to substantiating the validity of the estimated impact of EU-funding programmes on member states’ scientific output.

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Notes

  1. http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/cooperation/home_en.html. Last review: 20 Feb 2013.

  2. http://europa.eu/about-eu/countries/index_en.htm. Last review: 20 Feb 2013.

  3. In information retrieval, precision is the fraction of retrieved items that are relevant, while recall is the fraction of relevant items that are retrieved. Both are therefore based measure of relevance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_and_recall. Last review: 20 Feb 2013.

  4. Following an iterative process to identify relevant identifiers has also been tested, however, this approach turned out to be very cumbersome and did not improve the quality in comparison to samples 2 and 3.

  5. Since 2012, WoS enables the search of all the publications related to a WoS subject category (WS =). Otherwise, the search must be done for all journal titles assigned to the corresponding WoS Category.

  6. (1) http://www.theiet.org/resources/inspec/about/, (2) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/mesh.html, (3) http://eurovoc.europa.eu/drupal/, (4) http://bioportal.bioontology.org/ontologies/47638?p=terms and (5) http://www.wipo.int/classifications/ipc/en/. Last review 26 Feb 2013.

  7. The resulting search string is: TS = (“nanotechn* or nano-techn*”) OR TS = (nanobiotechnolog* OR nano-biotechnolog* OR nanocontact* OR nano-contact* OR nanostructure* OR nano-estructure* OR nanoelectric* OR nano-electric* OR (nanoelectromechanical devide* OR nanosensor* OR nanofluid*) OR nanoelectronic* OR nano-electronic* OR nanofabrication* OR nano-fabrication* OR nanolithograph* OR nano-lithograph* OR nanomagnetic* OR nano-magnetic* OR nanomagnetism* OR nano-magnetism* OR nanomechanic* OR nano-mechanic* OR nanoidentation* OR nano-identation* OR nanomedicine OR nano-medicine OR nanooptic* OR nano-optic* OR nanopatterning OR nano-patterning OR nanophotonic* OR nano-photonic* OR nanopositioning OR nano-positioning).

  8. TS = (atomic force* microscop* OR bio-inspired material* OR bioinspired material OR fullerene device* OR integrated circuit* technolog* OR lithograph* OR microchemistr* OR microchip analytical procedure* OR microfabrication* OR micromechanical device* OR miniaturization* OR nanobridge* OR nano-bridge* OR nanocomposite* OR nano-composite* OR nanofiber* OR nano-fiber* OR nanofiltration* OR nano-filtration* OR nanomaterial* OR nano-material* OR nanoparticle* OR nano-particle* OR nanopore* OR nano-pore* OR nanotube devide* OR nano-tube devide* OR nanoscience OR nano-science OR nanotube* OR nano-tube* OR nanowire* OR nano-wire* OR optical trap OR optical tweezer* OR scanning tunneling microscop* OR single electron transistor* OR superconducting OR VLSI).

  9. Based on data collected from SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJCR). http://www.scimagojr.com/. Last review 18 Feb 2013.

  10. The four UK countries (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) were considered separately in this analysis.

  11. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, http://www.dfg.de. Last review 15 Feb 2013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Library of Information Science, Carlos III University of Madrid, C/Madrid, 128, 28903, Getafe, Madrid, Spain

    María-Antonia Ovalle-Perandones & Carlos Olmeda-Gómez

  2. Bibliometrics Department, Vienna University Library, University of Vienna, Boltzmanngasse 5, 1090, Vienna, Austria

    Juan Gorraiz, Martin Wieland & Christian Gumpenberger

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  1. María-Antonia Ovalle-Perandones
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  2. Juan Gorraiz
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  3. Martin Wieland
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  4. Christian Gumpenberger
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  5. Carlos Olmeda-Gómez
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Correspondence to María-Antonia Ovalle-Perandones.

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Ovalle-Perandones, MA., Gorraiz, J., Wieland, M. et al. The influence of European Framework Programmes on scientific collaboration in nanotechnology. Scientometrics 97, 59–74 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-013-1028-2

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