Evaluation of the development level, subject distribution and trend of medical basic research in China / 中华医学科研管理杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective Quantitative evaluation was conducted to assess the development level and trend,as well as discipline distribution of basic medical research in China,based on SCI publications.Methods Descriptive analysis and trend analysis by 5-year moving time window were applied to analyze the quantity,quality,discipline distribution and current status and trend of development of medical research papers published by Chinese scientists during 2004 and 2013;Results Among a total of 280,200 medical research papers published from 2004 to 2013 period,China ranked # 5 in the world in terms of the quantity of papers.However,the average citation of 8.34 for Chinese paper was far below the global average of 14.11.Among all papers published by Chinese scientists,the percentages of papers in the field of psychiatry/psychology,neuroscience/behavior,immunology and clinical medicine were 2.20％,7.59％,3.93％ and 40.67％,respectively,lower than those of global average (6.71％,9.41％,4.62％ and 47.45％).The percentages of papers in other disciplines were higher for China than for global average.Regarding to the development trend,the annual increase in the number of publications of 5 years was 22.24 ％,while the 5-year citation per paper was only 2.03 ％.Conclusions The quantity of basic medical research in China is large and growing rapidly,while the quality of these researches remains in relatively lower level,and need to be improved substantially.With the discipline distribution different from the global average,psychiatry/psychology,neuroscience/behavior,immunology and clinical medicine should be strengthened in the future.