Determinants of the international influence of a R&D organisation: a bibliometric approach

Traditionally, studies on the influence and impact of knowledge-producing organisations have been addressed by means of strict economic analysis, stressing their economic impact to a local, regional or national extent. In the present study, an alternative methodology is put forward in order to evaluate the international scientific impact and influence of a knowledge-producing and -diffusing institution. We introduce a new methodology, based on scientometric and bibliometric tools, which complement traditional assessments by considering the influence of a R&D institution when looking at the scientific production undertaken and the recognition of its relevance by its international peer community. Focusing on the most prolific scientific areas of INESC Porto, and resorting to published scientific work recorded in the Science Citation Index (SCI), we show that INESC Porto has enlarged its international scientific network. The logit estimations demonstrate that the wide geographical influence of INESC Porto scientific research is a result not of its international positioning in terms of co-authorships, but rather a result of the quality of its scientific output.Impact and influence assessment methods; R&D Institutions; Bibliometrics, Scientometrics; knowledge network; INESC Porto

Determinants of the international influence of a R&D organisation: a bibliometric approach

Traditionally, studies on the influence and impact of knowledge-producing organisations have been addressed by means of strict economic analysis, stressing their economic impact to a local, regional or national extent. In the present study, an alternative methodology is put forward in order to evaluate the international scientific impact and influence of a knowledge-producing and -diffusing institution. We introduce a new methodology, based on scientometric and bibliometric tools, which complement traditional assessments by considering the influence of a R&D institution when looking at the scientific production undertaken and the recognition of its relevance by its international peer community. Focusing on the most prolific scientific areas of INESC Porto, and resorting to published scientific work recorded in the Science Citation Index (SCI), we show that INESC Porto has enlarged its international scientific network. The logit estimations demonstrate that the wide geographical influence of INESC Porto scientific research is a result not of its international positioning in terms of co-authorships, but rather a result of the quality of its scientific output.Impact and influence assessment methods; R&D Institutions; Bibliometrics, Scientometrics; knowledge network; INESC Porto

From individual scientific visibility to collective competencies : the example of an academic department in social science

The article discusses the role of university department in social sciences. It studies how to describe the three missions of university department: education, research and consultancy services for public and private organisations. It also proposes tools to evaluate to what extend these missions are connected. Until now, evaluation in this domain has focused primarily on research activities and far too few indicators have been developed for the other two missions. Moreover, evaluation is often performed on an individual basis, so that the synergy generated by work collectives is rarely evaluated. The purpose of this article is to propose a method for identifying and describing the competencies of a social science research and teaching department. By means of this method can be used to study the articulation between the department's different activities—research, expertise and teaching—can be studied. Maps of an activity are generated, which can serve as a basis for strategic planning of future trends. The approach is based on an analysis of "traces" (articles, contracts, research reports, postgraduate training modules) of the activity of the different components of the Social Science Department, using lexicographic analysis tools. With keywords, titles, summaries and synopses of lectures, it is possible to draw up "maps" representing the department's main competencies.

Assessing the influence of R&D institutions by mapping international scientific networks: the case of INESC Porto

Although scientometric and bibliometric studies embrace a much wider perspective of the linkages/networks of R&D institutions than standard economic studies, to the best of our knowledge, these studies have not yet made use of scientometric tools to analyse the influence and impact of R&D institutions. Moreover, the international perspective has so far been neglected both in standard and bibliometric studies. Based on networks of 1239 foreign co-authorships and 13035 foreign citation linkages, we demonstrate that INESC Porto international influence has considerably expanded since 2003, a year that coincided with the implementation of an internal policy of granting monetary prizes to publications in scientific international journals. In terms of co-authorship, the network of INESC Porto more than duplicated (13 countries in the initial period to 27 in 2004-07). In terms of citations, INESC Porto’s network encompassed almost 40 countries during the whole period (1996-2007). Its more prolific units (optoelectronics, energy and multimedia) presented a rather distinct pattern both in terms of size and evolution of the corresponding network boundaries. The network size of foreign co-authorships was not much different between the three units by the beginning of the 2000s (around 10 countries) but it evolved quite distinctly. The most remarkable pattern was registered by the multimedia (UTM) unit, whose network size rose exponentially to 21 countries in 2004-07. This contrasted with the decline (down to 8 countries) of the energy (USE) unit. The citation network of the optoelectronic unit (UOSE) was by far the largest, until 2003, involving 34 distinct countries, which contrasted with the size of USE (12 countries) and UTM (1 country). But again, after 2003, the size of the citation network of USE and UTM converged spectacularly to that of UOSE’s, reaching in the last period 21 and 16, respectively. The influence of INESC Porto reaches all five continents, especially when we consider citation networks. Indeed, excluding the citations from authors affiliated in Portuguese institutions, those that most cite INESC Porto’s (and UOSE’s) works are affiliated in institutions located in China, the UK and the US. The scientific works produced by USE influences mostly authors affiliated in institutions located in India, China and Spain, whereas for UTM the corresponding countries are the US, Germany and Italy. We infer from the evidence analysed that not only did the boundaries of INESC Porto’s scientific network substantially enlarge in the period of analysis (1996-2007) but its ‘quality’ also evidenced a positive evolution, with authors affiliated in institutions located in the scientific frontier countries citing works of INESC Porto (and its units).Bibliometrics, Knowledge networks; R&D Institutions

A scientometric analysis of studies on risk management in construction projects

Risk management is one of the topical areas in construction project management research. However, no attempt has been made in the past decades to explore the emerging themes in this area. This paper reviews the research trends in risk management in construction. The bibliometric data of 1635 publications between 1979 and 2022 were extracted from Scopus using a set of keywords. The study used VOSviewer and Gephi to conduct a scientometric analysis on the extracted publications. The review outcome indicates a significant increase in publications on risk management in construction, with about 205 publications recorded between 2021 and 2022 alone. Based on this analysis, it is projected that the next decade will see significant research on risk management, especially as the construction industry moves towards Industry 5.0 with many uncertainties. Further, the most productive countries of risk management studies in construction include China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Hong Kong. Emerging key research areas are discussed using network diagrams and clusters. These areas include the processes in risk management, risk analytical models and techniques, sources of risk and uncertainties, effective knowledge-based systems for improved risk management, risk contingency in construction contracts, risk-integrated project planning and scheduling, and stakeholder management. The findings of this study inform researchers on the current progress of risk management studies in construction and highlight possible research directions that can be considered

Assessing the influence of R&D institutions by mapping international scientific networks: the case of INESC Porto

Although scientometric and bibliometric studies embrace a much wider perspective of the linkages/networks of R&D institutions than standard economic studies, to the best of our knowledge, these studies have not yet made use of scientometric tools to analyse the influence and impact of R&D institutions. Moreover, the international perspective has so far been neglected both in standard and bibliometric studies. Based on networks of 1239 foreign co-authorships and 13035 foreign citation linkages, we demonstrate that INESC Porto international influence has considerably expanded since 2003, a year that coincided with the implementation of an internal policy of granting monetary prizes to publications in scientific international journals. In terms of co-authorship, the network of INESC Porto more than duplicated (13 countries in the initial period to 27 in 2004-07). In terms of citations, INESC Porto’s network encompassed almost 40 countries during the whole period (1996-2007). Its more prolific units (optoelectronics, energy and multimedia) presented a rather distinct pattern both in terms of size and evolution of the corresponding network boundaries. The network size of foreign co-authorships was not much different between the three units by the beginning of the 2000s (around 10 countries) but it evolved quite distinctly. The most remarkable pattern was registered by the multimedia (UTM) unit, whose network size rose exponentially to 21 countries in 2004-07. This contrasted with the decline (down to 8 countries) of the energy (USE) unit. The citation network of the optoelectronic unit (UOSE) was by far the largest, until 2003, involving 34 distinct countries, which contrasted with the size of USE (12 countries) and UTM (1 country). But again, after 2003, the size of the citation network of USE and UTM converged spectacularly to that of UOSE’s, reaching in the last period 21 and 16, respectively. The influence of INESC Porto reaches all five continents, especially when we consider citation networks. Indeed, excluding the citations from authors affiliated in Portuguese institutions, those that most cite INESC Porto’s (and UOSE’s) works are affiliated in institutions located in China, the UK and the US. The scientific works produced by USE influences mostly authors affiliated in institutions located in India, China and Spain, whereas for UTM the corresponding countries are the US, Germany and Italy. We infer from the evidence analysed that not only did the boundaries of INESC Porto’s scientific network substantially enlarge in the period of analysis (1996-2007) but its ‘quality’ also evidenced a positive evolution, with authors affiliated in institutions located in the scientific frontier countries citing works of INESC Porto (and its units). Length: 64 pagesBibliometrics, Knowledge networks; R&D Institutions

Bibliometric analysis for reviewing published studies in the built environment

Literature review is generally one of the key steps in conducting a scientific research. The overwhelming amount of literature may require significant effort to sort out, screen, and analyse before generating useful information and achieving research objectives in any scholarly work within a given domain. As the text-mining-featured analysis tools (e.g., VosViewer) become available for visualizing and analysing secondary data sources (e.g., literature), the bibliometric analysis is becoming one of the widely adopted methods in reviewing literature, especially for a large amount of secondary sources. In this chapter, bibliometric analysis is firstly defined. The rationale for adopting them when conducting literature review is described. The existing software tools for conducting the text-mining-based analysis (e.g., VosViewer, Gephi, etc.) are introduced. Using two cases in the subject of built environment, the detailed workflow of conducting the science mapping approach involving bibliometric analysis is also described. The network analysis using one of the bibliometric analysis tools (i.e., VosViewer) is showcased. Finally, the general guidance of conducting a bibliometric analysis is summarised, with recommendations provided and common mistakes described