Scientific production in Ecuador covers 27 subject areas

In the past 100 years, Ecuador has developed more than 30,000 scientific publications and the majority are compatible with computer science.

An analysis by the University of San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) reveals how The level of scientific research in the past 100 years in the country.

the The study collects a total of 30,205 documentsIt has been developed in 27 subject areas, published in 13 languages, and with contributions from 84 countries.

The authors say the collected research “relates to the global context by presenting topics related to biology and regional climate change, higher education and its various approaches, technology and informatics, medicine, energy, food, water, development and applications on the web.”

According to the analysis, Scientific production It shows sustainable growth while allowing its treatment in Two phases: 1920-1990 and 1991-2020.

In the first stage, 372 documents were registered. “The fields of medicine, agricultural and biological sciences, and Earth and planetary sciences were consolidated at this point, thanks to private companies, public institutions, hospitals, foundations, and universities,” the study says.

On the other hand, the The second phase Retrieved in 2008. “New changes in the higher education system relating to national legislation, university evaluation and new guidelines for its faculty.” This stage accounts for 98.7% of publications.

Thematic areas

The country has contributed to 27 scientific subject areas throughout history. The fields with the highest contribution are: computer science (12.7%), followed by agricultural and biological sciences (11.3%) and medicine (11.2%).

Publications by language

in various fields of knowledge, The English language is prevalent because of its importance in the scientific community And as a common link for international cooperation.

Scientific publications in Ecuador present a similar pattern, with 80.7% in English. The second most widely spoken language is Spanish at 16.5%.

Other languages ​​offered for studies are Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Czech, Georgian, Korean, Polish and Catalan.

Post type

Scientific production is reflected in 11 types of documents. Articles published in journals are the majority (68.8%).

while the Conference articles represent (22.01%). However, the state entered this type of publication in 1989, and its growth began in 2013.

Quality of published articles

“An issue that has generated controversy in the academic world is the relationship between the number of scientific publications and their perceived quality,” the San Francisco report says.

For this reason, the articles analyzed are classified into four groups:

• Q1: Publications are in the 99-75 range of the Citycore scale and represent 41.4% of the country’s production.
• Q2: Corresponds to CiteScore 74 to 50. It constitutes 22.5% of scientific production.
• Q3: CiteScore posts are from 49 to 25 and represent 15% of posts.
• Q4: The lowest score is CiteScore 24-0. It ranks third in production with 21%.