The COVID-19 research landscape

Abstract

Objectives: The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused heavy burdens and brought tremendous challenges to global public health. This study aimed to investigate collaboration relationships, research topics, and research trends on COVID-19 using scientific literature. Method: COVID-19-related articles published from January 1 to July 1, 2020 were retrieved from PubMed database. A total of 27,370 articles were included. Excel 2010, Medical Text Indexer (MTI), VOSviewer, and D3.js were used to summarize bibliometric features. Results: The number of the COVID-19 research publications has been continuously increasing after its break. United States was the most productive and active country for COVID-19 research, with the largest number of publications and collaboration relationships. Huazhong University of Science and Technology from China was the most productive institute on the number of publications, and University of Toronto from Canada ranked as Top 1 institute for global research collaboration. Four key research topics were identified, of which the topic of epidemiology and public health interventions has gathered highest attentions. Topic of virus infection and immunity has been more focused during the early stage of COVID-19 outbreak compared with later stage. The topic popularity of clinical symptoms and diagnosis has been steady. Conclusions: Our topic analysis results revealed that the study of drug treatment was insufficient. To achieve critical breakthroughs of this research area, more interdisciplinary, multi-institutional, and global research collaborations are needed.

Science Mapping of the Global Knowledge Base on Management, Leadership, and Administration Related to COVID-19 for Promoting the Sustainability of Scientific Research

“…These results reveal the importance of international collaboration in preparing management-, leadership-, and administration-oriented publications related to COVID-19. The issue of collaboration between countries in COVID-19-related studies included in the current study's findings was similar to those reported by Wang and Hong [52], in which it was emphasized that the United States was the country most active with the most significant number of cooperative relations with other countries/regions. Additionally, the United States and China had the most connectivity compared to other countries, with a combined total of 439 collaborative articles.…”

A Scientometric Analysis of Highly Cited Publications and a Summary of Top 25 Articles Regarding Covid-19

“…It was reported that trend curves of topic popularity indicated that the most important issue was the prevention and control of COVID-19. Additionally, drug therapy was emphasized as the weak point in COVID-19 literature [7]. In a study on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2-related documents published until 23 April 2020, reports on the clinical and laboratory characteristics of the confirmed cases are of the most interest [39].…”

“…When highly cited articles were investigated, we observed that Huazhong University of Science Technology was in the first place regarding productivity. Accordingly, in a study investigating the ranking of universities, it was determined that Huazhong University of Science and Technology from China was the most productive institute on the number of publications, and University of Toronto from Canada ranked as Top 1 institute for global research collaboration [7]. In the beginning of the pandemic, researchers benefited from experiences of China since it was the origin of pandemic.…”

“…Speaking of such a pandemic, it is not surprising that more and more COVID-19-related articles are being published. Researchers all around the World are racing to find solutions to stop rapid transmission of the disease, diagnosis, treatment, prevention and vaccination [7]. Investigation of scientific literature has numerous benefits for public health.…”

The Pandemic Year 2020: World Map of Coronavirus Research

“…Indeed, it was expected that the number of publications on CoV would increase sharply in 2020, but to what extent and with what participation were not clear [ 4 ]. There already have been some studies on the general output of COVID-19–related publications [ 5 - 7 ]. In addition, however, it is necessary to identify and evaluate the general and national research efforts according to additional influences such as epidemiological and funding characteristics to enable successful and determined planning, funding, and implementation of science-based research in the future that reaches all necessary areas through balanced multidisciplinary research.…”