Living Systems in Russia are Evaluated in Terms of the Number of Scientific Publications Related to the Subject

Abstract

Those fields within science in which there is continuous development need to be objectively evaluated in order to determine the efficiency of work being conducted by those working in that field. Different criteria provide an estimate of this efficiency at both the level of individual scientists as well as that of entire scientific institutions. Moreover, it is possible to obtain an estimate of the rate of progress in research activities within

Full Text

The assessment of researchers and their respective level of activity is made based on the amount of research publications. this applies both to individual investigators and to scientific centers as a whole. there are some obvious advantages to this approach. First, this is the most objective approach, because scientific publications are the most widespread and common measurable result of scientific work, being the vehicle by which research results can be distributed and shared with scientists all over the world. Second, publication activity is an easily measured variable, especially in recent years, following the advent of new, large databases of research papers. It should be noted that different measurement systems register different scientific publications and, as a result, provide slightly different data. However, significant differences in figures and dynamics have not been observed in russia. With the aforementioned in mind, the publication activity (PA) of russian researchers involved in the “Living Systems” priority direction during the time period between 1996 and 2008 was analyzed using the international ScOPuS database. the “Living Systems” direction is second only to nanotechnologies in terms of the amount of financing but is first from the standpoint of resulting improvement in the quality of life in our country. the purpose of this analysis was to identify those specific spheres of the “Living Systems” Program where scientists are most active. the investigation consisted not only in the analysis of the number of publications, but also in the establishment of leading institutes and scientific centers able to become special “crystallization centers” with their work centered on “Living Systems” in russia.