Search

This study used bibliometrics to analyze the characteristics of funded papers in the social sciences in Taiwan from 2015 to 2019, including the number of funded papers, funded paper ratio, document types, fields, type of publishing organizations, journal impact, and paper citation impact. The results indicate that the number of funded papers and the funded paper ratio of SSCI papers from Taiwan have both increased. In addition to articles and reviews, conference papers are a major type of funded paper for local SSCI papers. In terms of fields, the nontraditional social sciences, such as environmental sciences, psychiatry, and public/environmental & occupational health, have a particularly high funded paper ratio. However, the number of funded papers and funded paper ratio is the highest in the field of education & educational research. The fields of economics, management, and business have a large number of funded papers but a low funded paper ratio. Universities are the main funded institutions, but hospitals have the highest funded paper ratio. Funded papers tend to have higher paper citation impacts. Therefore, funding positively affects the productivity and impact of SSCI papers from Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of debates about health, ecology, and livestock production have been erupted in Taiwanese society since August 2020, following a decision by Taiwan's government to allow the importation of pork containing ractopamine from the United States. It becomes necessary to understand how the academic research results on ractopamine have been quoted and interpreted as the basis for discussing the debates. In this systematic review of literature along with bibliometrics, we designed a coding scheme for judging the positive and negative effects of ractopamine on health and ecology reported in the academic papers. A total of 511 articles were found in the Scopus between 2000 and 2020. According to the literature review, human health and ecological concerns are not the focus of mainstream academia. The analyses reveal that the positions of academic communities are obviously divided and lack consensus on the health and ecological stance of ractopamine. The mutual use of systematic literature review and bibliometrics can effectively explore the research characteristics of a huge amount of academic literature with limited time and research manpower, create a common knowledge base for stakeholders, and practice low-cost democratic participation in science and technology issues. This research suggests that for any controversial and risk-related technology policies, or in the early stages of policy discussion, a large-scale academic literature review should be conducted by a third-party organization in order to achieve transparent governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]