Scientific Production of Researchers from the Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) in the Neuroscience area

Abstract

Introduction: The aim of this study was to describe the profile and scientific production of research fellows of the Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) in the neuroscience area. Methods: We created a database containing 542 researchers who were CNPq fellows in Medicine, of which 94 (17.34%) worked mainly in the neuroscience area. Results: The researchers were distributed in eight Brazilian States: São Paulo (n=49; 52.12%), Rio Grande do Sul (n=22; 23.40%), Rio de Janeiro (n=9; 9.57%), Minas Gerais (n=5; 5.31%), Ceará (n=4; 4.25%), Santa Catarina (n=3; 3.19%), Espirito Santo (n=1; 1.06) and Paraná (n=1, 1.06%). Although the neuroscience researchers were from more than 20 institutions, 58.5% worked in only 3 of those, namely USP (n=30), UFRGS (n=15) and UNIFESP (n=10). The median time since obtaining the PhD degree was 18.27 years (range, 5-39). Throughout their academic careers, 94 researchers published 16,488 papers in scientific journals, with an average of 175.40 articles per researcher (ranging from 43 to 715 articles). Of the 16,488 articles,12,801 or 77.63% were indexed at Web of Science (mean of 136.18 articles/researcher), while 10,166 or 61.65% were indexed at Scopus database (mean of 108.14 articles/researcher). Overall, those researchers advised 1,279 undergraduate students (median of 13.60; range: 0-68), of which 1,329 were master’s degree students (median of 14.13; range: 1-49) and 970 PhD students (median of 10.54; range: 0-42). The fellows’ median H-index at ISI was 23.75. Conclusion: It is observed that the neuroscience fellows constitute a group with significant scientific production (the fellows’ median H-index at ISI was 23.75). Most of these scientific publications were indexed at the Web of Science (77.63%) and Scopus (61.65%) databases. Human resources training are also highlighted, including undergraduate students, master’s degree students and PhD students. Comparative studies with researchers from other countries, in similar areas of knowledge, are necessary to better understand the present results.