Comparison and evaluation of domestic and international outputs in Information Science & Technology research of China

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the basic research performance of key projects in the field of information science & technology funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) from both international and national perspectives during the period 1994-2001, based upon the Science Citation Index (SCI) and China Scientific and Technical Papers and Citations (CSTPC) databases. We compare the international and domestic outputs of the key projects by applying various scientometric indicators and techniques. The findings indicate that, as a whole, the research performances of the key projects have, to different degrees, increased in both international and domestic papers during the period of study. Semiconductor is the internationally most productive sub-discipline and Automatization is the domestically most productive sub-discipline, measured on average per project. The Combination Impact Factor (CIF), which integrates the CSTPC-IF and the SCI-IF into the evaluation process, is further proposed for the combined evaluation of domestic and international outputs of the key projects. In terms of ratio of CIF relative to the funds in each sub-discipline, results also show that Semiconductor is the most productive sub-discipline and Computer is the least productive one. Using correlation analysis a significant and positive relationship between the SCI-IF and the CIF has been found for the evaluated projects.