Influence of the international collaboration in the field of metric studies of science and technology: the case of Mexico (1971–2018)

Abstract

We perform a bibliometric analysis of the research production and impact of Mexican scholars involved in the area of metric studies of science and technology in the period 1971–2018. In order to get a strong data sample, we used a bibliometric search that includes all databases that register mainstream, local and regional journals. Our search query included 46 different features that identify properly the area of metric studies in science and technology (bibliometry, scientometry, informetry, webmetrics and altmetrics). We applied this search in both English and Spanish. Since this area of knowledge has been cultivated rather recently in Mexico, our general aim is to characterize the possible effect of local and international collaboration on the research production of Mexican scholars working in this field. Our results indicate that this production is carried out mainly in local collaborations (75.3%) and most of this production involves scholars from the same Mexican institution (30%). A scarce fraction involves collaborations with scholars from Latin American (LA) institutions (7.7%) and with institutions beyond LA (17%). Accordingly, most of this production is published in local or regional journals in Spanish. Our conclusion indicates thus that international collaboration has little influence in the Mexican research in the field of metric studies a fact that it is not shared by other areas of knowledge in Mexico. We will pursue in future work the performance of faculty members associated to local graduate programs in this area of knowledge. We feel that an improvement in the research activity of these scholars may enhance substantially the research production in the area of metric studies.