Abstract

Guatemala, with 16 million inhabitants, is the largest economy of Central America and should have the largest scientific output of the region. To assess its productivity and impact, we analyzed the 3380 Guatemala articles included in the SCI-expanded in June, 2017. Most Guatemala documents are articles in English, deal with nutrition and health problems, and have a mean of 7.4 authors per article. Also in this particular database, citation lifespan is 40 years, and citations are higher for articles in English (twice more than those in Spanish), for reviews (mean 24 citations per review) and for studies resulting from international collaboration, which is done mostly with the USA and Mexico. The most productive institutions are the Center for Studies of Sensory Impairment CESSIAM, the universities of San Carlos and El Valle, and the Central American Nutrition Institute INCAP (but the INCAP has decreased productivity in recent years). The most productive researchers are N.W. Solomons, R. Bressani, L.G. Elías, C. Rolz and A. Cáceres. Guatemala represents a particular case in Central America because its high quality research is dependent on particular researchers rather than on institutions, and because the total output is well under the expectation. The productivity and citation of Guatemalan science in the 18 journals published in the country, and in other journals also not covered in the in the SCI-expanded, remain unknown. Nevertheless, the historical trend is positive, with a clear growth of international collaboration, productivity and citation.

Keywords: Web of Science, Latin American science, scientific output, most productive institutions and authors, research fields