Scientific production in Brazil drops like Ukraine at war – 07/24/2023 – Science

A survey published this Monday (24) concluded that Brazil had its first drop in the publication of scientific articles since 1996. The reduction was 7.4% in 2022 compared to the previous year. The index is the worst among 51 countries analyzed and is equal to that of Ukraine, which was at war for most of 2022.

The data were compiled by Agência Bori, a service that connects the Brazilian press and science, and by Elsevier, a publisher of scientific publications. Initially, it was defined that only those countries that published more than 10,000 articles in 2021 would enter the survey – in this case, 51 nations. They already represent about 95% of all scientific production worldwide.

We opted for the Scopus database, by Elsevier, to access the number of articles and their respective countries of publication. In addition to Brazil, another 22 had a drop in scientific production. The contraction also happened in rich countries with strong research institutions, such as the USA, England and France.

But what draws the attention of Estêvão Gamba, a scientometrician at the Bori Agency and one of those responsible for the survey, is that it was the first year that there was a drop in the production of Brazilian articles. “Since 1996, which is when this Elsevier base was created, it is the first drop in Brazil.”

In 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, there were around 77,000 articles published nationally. A year later, that number rose to 80,000 and, in 2022, dropped to 74,000. Gamba explains that the country was experiencing a slowdown in the volume of texts published in scientific periods, but it had not yet recorded a contraction compared to the previous year – it has always gone up, even if just a little.

Another worrying aspect is that the decrease of 7.4% was the highest registered in all countries. Only Ukraine also reached this percentage, but the eastern European country was at war for almost all of 2022, which may explain the drop.

In the case of Brazil, there are different hypotheses to account for the shrinkage. One of them, which also impacted other countries, was the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, the lack of funding that Brazilian science has experienced in recent years has a negative effect on the development of new articles. “You can’t do research without money”, sums up Gamba.

And the national reduction may continue for years to come. This is because carrying out a research takes time, together with its publication. Gamba explains that the drop in 2022, for example, is a reflection of research that stopped being developed in mid-2019 and 2020.

As the pandemic dragged on for other years and there was also budget contingency, the national production of articles must still suffer. “We will still possibly continue to observe the decline”, says Gamba.

But on a global level the production of articles in total has grown. The increase was 6.1% in 2022 compared to the previous year. China, USA and India are the three main producers of research – Brazil occupies the 14th position, the same as it already had in 2021.

Other indicators

The science of a country or an institution is not measured only by the number of articles published in journals. Another important indicator is the quality of these publications, which can be accessed, for example, by the volume of citations made in other studies. The more an article is cited, the greater its quality and relevance in the research area.

So far, the recently released survey has not compiled information on quality, but this is already on the team’s horizon, says Gamba. “We are only seeing the drop in production, but the quality of the articles may also have fallen”, he concludes.