On the relationship between quantity and quality of a country's research productivity

Abstract

Analyses of a sample of cancer research papers previously judged to be of high quality and of a random sample from the world literature, indicate that nineteen countries are the key producers of cancer research literature. Quality papers were much less dispersed among countries than ordinary papers and there was a high and statistically significant correlation be tween the quantity and the quality of productivity of countries.

Research on research evaluation

“…To reduce biases of age and research experience the measures were weighted in such a way that an older and more experienced researcher was not favoured by his or her longer time period for writing more reports. Lawani (1982) in a study of cancer research papers from 27 countries found a fairly strong rank correlation (r = '61, p < -01, n = 555 papers) of quantity and quality ranks, the latter assessment made by the 160-member panel constituted by the publisher of the Yearbook of Cancer.…”

“…Whether this is related to research quality is much more debatable, although there are Downloaded by [Deakin University Library] at 15:02 15 March 2015 several studies claiming that there is a strong relation between quantity and quality, for instance by Lawani (1982) (see §3.3.5.). According to Rudd (1988) the number of publications reflect, at least partly, the ability to gain funds for research and this is in itself partly based on a research quality judgment.…”