The University of Barcelona, leading institution in Spain regarding scientific output published in collaboration with the United Kingdom
The University of Barcelona is the leading university center in Spain regarding published scientific output in collaboration with the United Kingdom, according to the report Analysis of Scientific Output in collaboration between Spain and the United Kingdom. 2005 - 2014, edited by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT).
The University of Barcelona is the leading university center in Spain regarding published scientific output in collaboration with the United Kingdom, according to the report Analysis of Scientific Output in collaboration between Spain and the United Kingdom. 2005 - 2014, edited by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT).
The report, presented by the secretary of State for Research, Development and Innovation, Carmen Vela, reveals the amount of papers in collaboration between Spain and the United Kingdom was 47,537 during the period of 2005-2014. According to the conclusions, the joint publications between both countries increased by 71% -high-impact publications by 86% compared to the previous five years-, so the United Kingdom becomes the second scientific partner to Spain (after the United States), while Spain is United Kingdomʼs eighth partner.
The report shows a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the collaborative scientific relation between Spain and the United Kingdom out of the number of peer-reviewed papers and published in science journals (articles, reviews and proceedings of the main scientific conferences), which are the result of the international scientific collaboration.
The UB, with 4,661 publications, is the second research institution regarding collaborative scientific output in Spain, after CSIC (8,180 papers). The first five positions of this list are filled by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (3,683), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (2,869) and the University of Valencia (2,644).
Among the top ten institutions in 25 out of the 27 thematic areas
The UB holds a position among the top ten institutions with more Spanish-British collaboration publications in twenty-five out of the twenty-seven thematic areas of the report. In particular, these areas are Agriculture and Biological Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology, Materials Science, Environmental Science, Social Sciences, Decision Sciences, Computer Sciences, astrology, Economy, Econometrics and Finance, Nursing, Immunology and Microbiology, Mathematics, Medicine, Multidisciplinary Science, Business, Management and Accounting, Neurosciences, Dentistry, Health Professions, Psychology, and Chemistry.
Leading university regarding scientific outputin fourteen thematic areas
In these twenty-five mentioned disciplines, the UB outstands as the leading university in Spain in collaborative scientific output with the United Kingdom in fourteen thematic areas: Agriculture and Biological Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology, Materials Sciences, Social Sciences, Nursing, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmacy, Immunology and Microbiology, Medicine, Multidisciplinarity Science, Neurosciences, Health Professions, Psychology and Chemistry.
The FECYT report highlights that, since 2005, the excellence rate (articles listed among the top 10% cited) of the papers published by Spain in collaboration with the United Kingdom double, on average, the percentage of excellence in Spain. Regarding the United Kingdom, its collaboration with Spain increases its scientific excellence rate around ten percentage points. Between 2005 and 2014, the rate of collaboration excellence increased by more than three percentage points.
The report also shows the benefit the science collaboration means for both countries. Therefore, the normalized impact of the joint publication in 2014 is 2,89, while the normalized impact of Spain and the United Kingdom, individually, was of 1,31 and 1,51, respectively.
The importance of collaborations between the UB and universities from the UK
A UB report conducted out of the publications that were gathered in the Web of Science for the period 2008-2017 confirms the report carried out by the FECYT and shows that collaborations with the United Kingdom account for the 13% of all indexed publications, around 1,100 annual publications. The normalized impact for categories of these publications is even more significant, since it is more than four times higher than the global average.
Over the last ten years, 550 publications by the UB in collaboration with the United Kingdom were consolidated as highly cited papers (among the top 1% cited worldwide by category), which accounts for a 46% of the highly cited publications of the UB.
Regarding the number of received citations and publications, the UB shows a higher scientific collaboration with the following universities from the United Kingdom: University of London, Imperial College London, University of Oxford, University College London and the University of Cambridge.
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