Bibliometric map of Spain 1994-2002:: biomedicine and health sciences

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The present study is a 1994-2002 update of the Spanish biomedical bibliometric map that follows other reports already published in MEDICINA CUNICA concerning the previous periods 1986-1989 and 1990-1993. MATERIAL AND METHOD: The results are restricted to citable documents, items that were classified in 70 categories according to 1996 JCR. Bibliometric analysis was based on simple (number of documents and number of received citations) and composite indicators (international collaboration, or percent of non cited documents). RESULTS: Spain occupies the eleventh place in the world, and the seventh place among the European countries. Despite Spanish contribution to the world biomedical production is 2.4 % it accounts for only 1.8 % of the whole citations. Spanish health sector is responsible for nearly the half of the total biomedical output. The 24.8 % of documents are published in international collaboration, a proportion that accumulates the 45.5 % of biomedical citations received. Catalonia stands out for its clinical research profile, Madrid for its CSIC high density centres while Andalusia and Valencia for their activity from university sector. CONCLUSIONS: Although the sustained growth in the number of documents, the ratio of citations per document remains below the international average. Despite of the international publication is greater than the world average, it remains under the European countries average. The analysis of the geographical and centre documents distribution shows a similar structure of biomedical scientific system when compared to preceding analyses, nevertheless with better results.