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Tayfun Basal, Regional Director, Elsevier

MENA: an overview of research performance

5th International MENA Tertiary Education Conference 31st May 2016, Algiers, Algeria

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Governments want top-class universities because the modern economy is driven by human capital.

Jean-Lou Chameau, former president of Caltech and now president of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of

Science and Technology (KAUST) The Economist, 28th March 2015

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Ambition of the discussion is to support;

•  National / Institutional research policy

development •  Strategic planning for research activities •  Research performance assessment •  Foster international collaboration in research

By using objective research performance indicators

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Introduction

•  This presentation briefly reports on the research output, citation impact and international research collaboration practices of the MENA region as important indicators of the strength of the research enterprise.

•  These research performance indicators will be presented using data and visualisations from SciVal.

•  The purpose of the report is to provide a credible evidence base to understand the current status of research in the MENA region.

•  As such, patterns revealed through the report constitute valuable insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the different geographic areas of MENA

•  The results will deepen knowledge about the region’s research performance which may contribute to strategic decision-making and identification of phenomena which call for further investigation

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Methodology

Reference Period: The report provides an exploratory overview of the MENA region's research performance over the period 2011 to 2016 (current) using Elsevier’s bibliometrics tool SciVal. A few noted exceptions to the period were made to allow deeper analysis of phenomena which arose.

Region: To contextualise the findings of the analysis, the MENA region was divided into three sub-regions: •  MENA Africa: Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco & Mauritania •  MENA GCC: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman & Bahrain •  MENA Asia: Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Palestine &

Yemen

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Methodology

Data: Elsevier’s research data (as used in SciVal and Scopus) was used to perform the analysis of MENA’s research trends. While the report recognizes that indicators on peer-reviewed research outputs do not fully capture all research activity, Scopus offers the most systematic and objective foundation for analysis currently available as endorsed by global ranking organisations. Scope: As an exploratory overview, the analysis is limited to basic/fundamental metrics such as publication counts, citations, co-authorship (collaboration) although a vastly richer picture may be painted using a full suite of metrics including i.e. economic indicators and views. Subject areas: The report focuses on the top six subject areas prevalent in the greater MENA region. An analysis of all subject areas is however advisable to uncover possible obstacles which prevent higher productivity and impact.

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Definitions

For the sake of clarity, a few metrics are explained upfront: •  Outputs in Top Percentiles - The number of publications of an entity

which are highly cited, having reached a particular threshold of citations received (1%, 5%, 10%, etc.)

•  Top Journal Percentiles - The number of publications of a selected entity that have been published in the world's top journals.

•  FWCI (Field-Weighted Citation Impact) – The ratio of citations received relative to the expected world average for the subject field, publication type and publication year. The indicator is always defined with reference to a global baseline of 1.0.

•  Collaboration – The extent of international, national and institutional co-authorship based on authors affiliated with institutions from at least two different affiliations listed in the authorship byline.

TITLE OF PRESENTATION | 8 8 |

What content does Scopus cover?

•  Over 61 million records (23M+ records pre-1996, going back as far as 1823 | 38M+ records post 1996 (84% with references)

•  Updated daily

•  Content from > 5,000 publishers

CONFERENCES 90K events 7.3M records Conf. expansion: 1,000 conferences 6,000 conf. events 400K conf. papers 5M citations Mainly Engineering and Computer Sciences

BOOKS 531 book series - 30K Volumes - 1.2M items 120,000 books Books expansion: - Focus on Social Sciences and A&H

PATENTS 25.2M patents from 5 major patent offices - WIPO - EPO - USPTO - JPO - UK IPO

JOURNALS 21,912 peer-reviewed journals 361 trade journals - Full metadata, abstracts and cited references (pre-1996) - 3,715 fully Open Access titles - Going back to 1823 - Funding data from acknowledgements

Physical Sciences 7,498

Health Sciences 6,843

Social Sciences 8,193

Life Sciences 4,509

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SciVal in a nutshell

SciVal offers quick, easy access to the research performance of 220 nations and 6,000 research institutions worldwide, and groups of institutions

Visualize research performance

Benchmark your progress

Develop collaborative partnerships

Ready-made-at a glance snapshots of any selected entity

Flexibility to create and compare any research groups

Identify and analyze existing and potential collaboration opportunities

Analyze research trends

Analyze research trends to discover the top performers and rising stars

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At a glance, it is evident that productivity and impact vary across MENA sub-regions for the period 2011 to >2016

MENA Africa Publications Citations Citations per Pub Authors FWCI

150,849 (+36.4%) 435,425 2.9 139,748 0.76

MENA Asia Publications Citations Citations per Pub Authors FWCI

458,852 (+14.7%) 1,412,653 3.1 394,142 0.8

MENA GCC Publications Citations Citations per Pub Authors FWCI

117,878 (+69.9%) 492,640 4.2 69,754 1.18

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Growth in research output is strong with MENA GCC leading at 18% per year, followed by MENA Africa at 12% and MENA Asia at 11%

11.05% 12.71%

18.26%

MENA Asia MENA Africa MENA GCC

Publication Growth (CAGR) 2005 -2015

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Subject share generally follows a similar pattern across all three the sub-regions, but MENA Asia has a considerable lead in output volume

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

PUBLICAT

IONNUMBE

R(Tho

usan

ds)

SUBJECTAREAS

MENAAsia

MENAAfrica

MENAGCC

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The top subject areas across all of the three sub-regions are: medicine, engineering, physics and astronomy, material science, chemistry and computer science

02468101214161820

AgriculturalandBiologicalSciences

Biochemistry,GeneBcsandMolecularBiology

ChemicalEngineering

Chemistry

ComputerScience

EarthandPlanetarySciences

Energy

EngineeringEnvironmentalScience

MaterialsScience

MathemaBcs

Medicine

Pharmacology,Toxicologyand

PhysicsandAstronomy

SocialSciences

MENAGCC

MENAAsia

MENAAfrica

Subjectshare:top15subjects(2011->2016)

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14.2

11.7

8.37.7

6.9 6.9

19.7

12.1

66.7 6.7 6.5

14.7

12.6

8.6

6.97.7 7.5

0

5

10

15

20

25

Medicine Engineering ComputerScience

Chemistry PhysicsandAstronomy

MaterialsScience

%Sub

jectdistrib

uBon

MENAGCC MENAAsia MENAAfrica

The highest subject focus is in Mena Asia where 20% of research output is in medicine

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The citation impact of MENA GCC surpasses global baseline (1.0) in most subject areas while MENA Asia and Africa largely score below global baseline

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8AgriculturalandBiologicalSciences

ArtsandHumaniBesBiochemistry,GeneBcsand

MolecularBiologyBusiness,Managementand

AccounBng

ChemicalEngineering

Chemistry

ComputerScience

DecisionSciences

DenBstry

EarthandPlanetarySciences

Economics,EconometricsandFinance

Energy

EngineeringEnvironmentalScienceHealthProfessions

ImmunologyandMicrobiology

MaterialsScience

MathemaBcs

Medicine

MulBdisciplinary

Neuroscience

Nursing

Pharmacology,ToxicologyandPharmaceuBcs

PhysicsandAstronomy

Psychology

SocialSciencesVeterinary

MENAGCC

MENAAsia

MENAAfrica

GLOBALBASELINE

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There is high correlation between outputs in top percentiles and outputs published in top journals*

Outputs in Top Journal Percentiles* (10%)

Outputs in Top Percentiles (10%)

Based on SNIP (Source-Normalized Impact per Paper) – The citation impact of a journal. SNIP is normalized for the journal’s subject field, weighting citations based on the number of expected citations in that field.

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A. Publications in Top Journal Percentiles (10%) (using SNIP)

B. Publications in Top 10% of world’s most cited publications

“.

A. MENA GCC far exceeds other MENA sub-regions in top percentiles B. MENA Asia surpassed MENA Africa’s highly cited publications since 2012

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Overall, chemistry leads with publications amongst top 10% most cited globally, and computer science leads with publications in the top 10% of journals globally based on SNIP

12.39.2

12.67.3

3.1

14.814.1

7

15.9

10.26.8

17.918.515.4

22.1

13.18

26

051015202530

Physics&Astronomy Medicine MaterialScience Engineering ComputerScience Chemistry

Percen

tage

OutputsinTopPercenKles(10%)

MENA-Africa MENA-Asia MENA-GCC

11

6.1

16

20.717.1

9.8

14.4

4.5

20

27.6

31.8

9.7

17.5

12.2

23.4

32.3 32.9

16.1

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Physics&Astronomy Medicine MaterialScience Engineering ComputerScience Chemistry

Percen

tage

OutputsinTopJournalPercenKles(10%)

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MENA Africa, the majority of subject areas are below the global citation baseline, with the exception of Energy which exceeds the world average by a small margin

Global baseline

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In MENA – GCC, the majority (78%) of subject areas surpass global citation baseline and a large number of small subject areas display high impact

Global baseline

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In MENA Asia, roughly 20% of subject areas surpass the global citation baseline with chemical engineering, energy and decision science being most impactful

Global baseline

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Substantial variation in the scope of international collaboration between Mena sub-regions

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MENA GCC has sharper growth in internationally co-authored publications from 2006 than other

sub-regions

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Key Findings MENA Africa

PUBLICATION GROWTH RATE

36.4% FIELD-WEIGHTED CITATION IMPACT

0.76 INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION

44.5% OUTPUTS IN TOP PERCENTILES

11% MENA Asia

PUBLICATION GROWTH RATE

14.7% FIELD-WEIGHTED CITATION IMPACT

0.8 INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION

22.2% OUTPUTS IN TOP PERCENTILES

12% MENA GCC

PUBLICATION GROWTH RATE

69.9% FIELD-WEIGHTED CITATION IMPACT

1.18 INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION

65.9% OUTPUTS IN TOP PERCENTILES

18%

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Conclusion

•  An analysis of the research performance of the MENA region was carried out using data and visualisations from SciVal

•  Using publication information from the Scopus index provided a credible evidence base to understand the current status of research in the MENA region

•  Patterns were revealed which provide valuable insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the different geographic areas of MENA

•  Publication trends were identified which could be further analysed to uncover obstacles and unfavourable research practices which prevents optimum research

•  The overall result of the study is deeper knowledge about the region’s research performance which may contribute to strategic decisions to effectively drive achieve the research objectives of the region

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www.elsevier.com/research-intelligence

Thank you Questions or additional information; t.basal@elsevier.com