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Nanoscience and nanotechnology research publications: a comparison between Australia and the rest of the world

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Abstract

Nanoscience and nanotechnology are research areas of a multidisciplinary nature. Having a good knowledge of the rapidly evolving nature of these research areas is important to understand the research paths, as well as national and global developments in these areas. Accordingly, in this reported study nanoscience and nanotechnology research undertaken globally was compared with that of Australia by way of analyzing research publications. Initially, four different bibliometric Boolean-based search methodologies were used to analyze publications in the Web of Science database (Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Knowledge). These methodologies were (a) lexical query, (b) search in nanoscience and nanotechnology journals, (c) combination of lexical query and journal search and (d) search in the ten nano-journals with the highest impact factors. Based on results obtained, the third methodology was found to be the most comprehensive approach. Consequently, this search methodology was used to compare global and Australian nanoscience and nanotechnology publications for the period 1988–2000. Results demonstrated that depending on the search technique used, Australia ranks fourteenth to seventeenth internationally with a higher than world average number of nanoscience and nanotechnology publications. Over the last decade, Australia showed a relative growth rate in nanoscience and nanotechnology publications of 16 % compared to 12 % for the rest of the world. Researchers from China, the USA and the UK are from the main countries that collaborate with Australian researchers in nanoscience and nanotechnology publications.

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Acknowledgments

Authors wish to acknowledge Dr. Thomas Barlow for his useful comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Science, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, 2109, Australia

    T. Gorjiara & C. Baldock

  2. Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Camperdown, NSW, 2050, Australia

    T. Gorjiara

  3. Department of Radiation Oncology, Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, Camperdown, NSW, 2050, Australia

    T. Gorjiara

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  1. T. Gorjiara
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  2. C. Baldock
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Correspondence to C. Baldock.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 3, 4 and 5.

Table 3 List of the nano-related search terms (Arora et al. 2013)
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Table 4 List of the nano-journals used for journal search refining methodology
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Table 5 List of countries in the North America, European Union and East Asia
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Gorjiara, T., Baldock, C. Nanoscience and nanotechnology research publications: a comparison between Australia and the rest of the world. Scientometrics 100, 121–148 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-014-1287-6

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