Evaluation on the Scientific Production in Fields of Medicine: a Comparative Study

ABSTRACT

Objective  Knowledge production, technology generation and human resource training for research are themes which have been under the limelight in the academic and governmental environment. The aim of this study was to compare the scientific productivity, human resource training and the profile of researchers awarded scientific productivity grants by the CNPq (Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development), from medical knowledge areas.

Methods  This is a descriptive and comparative study among researchers with scholarships in the fields of Cardiology, Hematology/Oncology, Nephrology/Urology, Pediatrics and Clinical Neuroscience, obtained through previous studies. The variables analyzed were: gender, researcher home institution, PhD time, doctoral institution, undergraduate research guidelines, master’s and doctorate degrees, and publications in journals. The researchers granted with the PQ (scientific productivity) grants were also divided into the present CNPq categories of: 2, 1A, 1B, 1C and 1D.

Results  from a total of 411 researchers in Medicine, 192 (46.7%) were identified as belonging to areas of the five studies involved, predominantly male (71.3%), concentrated in categories 2 and 1A. The southeastern and southern Brazilian regions together comprise the majority of the researchers (over 90.0%) and São Paulo accounted for 63.0% of the researchers, also hosting the two main institutions – Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Unifesp) and Universidade de São Paulo (USP) – containing 49.5% of the stock. There was a prevalence students undergoing of teacher training (1,846 master’s degree supervisions), followed by 1,674 undergraduate and 1,115 doctoral students. Of the 18,456 articles that were published in journals, 56.0% of them indexed in the ISI database and 78% in Scopus.

Conclusions  In this study, it was noted that all the analysed fields showed growing scientific productivity, above all Clinical Neuroscience, and expressive human resource training, with a constant for improving quality performance. However, regional disparity was found as regards the concentration of researchers, as well as a lack of patent production.

Scientific Production Indicators; Medicine; Health Sciences; Researchers