Biomedical Research Output in the Last Decade: Japanese Perspectives / General Medicine

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To examine Japan's overall biomedical research productivity and its trend in the last decade.<BR>METHODS: Articles published during 1991-2000 were accessed through Medline database. The number of articles having affiliation with a Japanese institution was elicited using standard search strategy.<BR>RESULTS: In total 3.8 million articles were published during 1991-2000 while 330, 513 articles (8.7% of total) were originated from Japan. With language limited to English, there were 3.3 million articles in total and 252, 635 (7.6% of total) from Japan. Yearly numbers of articles significantly increased as a whole and also for Japan. The number of English-language articles from Japan increased by 63% during 2000 compared to 1991 while it was 34% on average for all other countries. On the other hand, the number of Japanese-language articles was 77, 878 with a 16.5% decrease in the same time.<BR>CONCLUSION: The number of English-language articles originating from Japan has been increasing at a pace higher than that for all other countries together.