Investigación de excelencia en España: ¿actores protagonistas o papeles secundarios?

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The goal is to determine the significance of the Spanish contribution and the real impact of papers signed by Spanish scientists in a sample of leading scientific journals. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Sectional descriptive study of 252 papers with Spanish institutional participation in the following journals Nature, Science, PNAS, NEJM, JAMA and Lancet during the period 2004-2005. The participation percentage of Spanish institutions and responsibility is counted in each paper differentiating between papers signed only by Spanish authors, papers signed by Spanish authors in first or last position and papers signed by Spanish authors in intermediate positions. For measuring impact we compared the journal Impact Factor, according to JCR 2006, with the actual Factor that articles signed by Spanish Authors reached taking into account the different degrees of participation and responsibility. RESULTS: Spanish output in leading journals is 2,1% which is below the global productivity of Spain(3,25%). Both Spanish contribution and leadership are poor: for every 10 institutions that signed the articles only 2 of them were Spanish and in 54% of the cases Spain played a secondary role (intermediate signing order). The actual impact of the Spanish papers is really small. Papers where Spanish scientists have more responsibility got less impact than the expected JCR Impact of the different journals: 54% less in the case of papers written only by Spanish authors and 45% less in the case of articles signed in first/last position by Spanish authors. CONCLUSIONS: The impact of Spanish science in leading journals is below the level projected by previous bibliometrics studies. The indicators measuring the degree of participation (proportional counting) and responsibility (signing order) show that Spanish scientific publications still have a long way to go to reach the top of world science.