Science

The quality of the Portuguese scientific and technological institutions has been recognised in the evaluation processes carried out in recent years by independent panels of national and international experts.

In the area of Health Sciences, in particular, the results of the evaluation of the R&D Units (except the Associate Laboratories) disclosed by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), referring to the period 2003-2006, show that of the 38 units which were evaluated, 19 were classified as Excellent or Very Good.

Regarding the Associate Laboratories which have the Health Sciences as the main scientific area, all 5 Laboratories evaluated in 2002-2004 were classified as Excellent. It should be noted that 4 out of these 5 Laboratories are members of the HCP: CNC - Centro de Neurociências e Biologia Celular; IBMC - Instituto de Biologia Molecular e Celular; IMM - Instituto de Medicina Molecular; IPATIMUP - Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto.

The funding provided by the FCT to the R&D Units and Associate Laboratories in the area of Medical and Health Sciences, between 2003 and 2007, surpassed 44 million euros, rising from 3.5 million in 2003 to 14.2 million euros in 2007.

The number of R&D projects in the areas of Health Sciences and Clinical Research supported by the FCT in the 2006 and 2007 calls, respectively, exceeded 230.

The projects were distributed by the following areas:

• Health Sciences (169 projects), including

     - Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (19 projects)

     - Neuroscience (26 projects)

     - Epidemiology, Public Health and Environment (23 projects)

     - Microbiology, Infection, Immunology and Inflammation (29 projects)

     - Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences (23 projects)

     - Oncobiology and Developmental Biology (17 projects)

     - Medical Genetics and Functional Genomics (17 projects)

     - Organs and Systems, Metabolism, Nutrition and Toxicology (15 projects)

• Clinical Research (63 projects)

Overall, about 42% of the projects were classified as Excellent and the remaining 58% as Very Good, and the total granted values were close to 31 million euros.

According to official data (GPEARI/MCTES), the Portuguese scientific production in the areas of Life Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences (includes Basic Medicine, Clinical Medicine, Health Sciences and Other Medical Sciences) registered a strong increase between 1990 and 2007-08.

Note: Number of publications determined by fractional count.

(To know more, please visit www.gpeari.mctes.pt)

The increase in the number of publications was common to several sub-fields – including Clinical Medicine, Biology & Biochemistry, Molecular Biology & Genetics, Neurosciences & Behaviour, Pharmacology, and Immunology – and was accompanied by a strong increase in the number and impact of citations, as shown by the data referring to the quinquennia from 1990-94 to 2003-07. One must mention, in particular, the relative citation impact of the Clinical Medicine field, with a value (which is calculated by dividing the "Citation impact of all the publications" by the "World impact of the field") higher than the world average since the quinquennium 1996-2000, having reached a maximum in the quinquennium 2003-2007.
  

(To know more, please visit www.gpeari.mctes.pt)

In agreement with the official data presented above, a benchmarking study performed by Evaluametrics / Dr. Grant Lewison shows that the Portuguese scientific production in the area of biomedicine, although relatively low when compared to other countries / regions, has been consistently growing for many years now.

In fact, between 1998 and 2007, the research output (integer counts of articles + reviews) has grown at an average annual rate close to 10.8%, a value more than three times higher than the world average (which is 3.3%), and higher than countries like Greece (10.6%), Czech Republic (8.3%), Ireland (7.6%) and the Swedish-Danish region of Medicon Valley (2.6%).

According to the same source, the Portuguese publications in the area of biomedicine are receiving more citations each year. During the period 1998-2003, the mean five-year citation score for Portuguese papers was close to 10.3, which was lower than the values for the Medicon Valley region and Ireland, but higher than for the Czech Republic and Greece.

Another parameter that can be considered, in a way, as a measure of the quality of the Portuguese publications in the area of biomedicine is the co-authorship with countries that are traditionally regarded as carrying out very good quality work in this area. The percentage of Portuguese papers co-authored with scientists in the USA and in the UK is relatively high, when compared to other countries/regions, as shown below.