Twenty five years of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor: bibliometric analysis

Abstract

The idea of international collaboration to achieve the goal of generating electricity from fusion was conceived in 1985. A consortium of seven members (Japan, the European Union, South Korea, China, India, the USA and Russia) has proposed to build a fusion reactor, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) to realise this goal. Intense research in this area by the seven participating members has led to a proliferation of publications. The present study offers an overview of research on the ITER during the 25 years from 1986 to 2010, based on a bibliometric analysis of these publications retrieved from the INIS (International Nuclear Information System) database. The objectives are to quantify scientific publication production on ITER since its inception, to analyse geographic distribution of articles by country and language, to identify the prominent researchers, to analyse the important journals through their number of published papers, and briefly to analyse India’s contribution to ITE...