Bibliometric Analysis of SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 Studies from India and Connection to Sustainable Development Goals

Top 100 highly cited papers from India on COVID-19 research: A bibliometric analysis of the core literature

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

This study aimed to assess the current status of India's COVID-19 research from the top 100 most cited papers, using bibliometrics methods and indicators and suggest strengths and weaknesses.

METHODOLOGY

Publications on COVID-19 research from India between December 2019 and 22 August 2023 were retrieved from the Scopus database. From 37101 studies retrieved, the first top 100 Highly Cited Papers (HCPs) having received 270 to 2931 citations, were identified.

RESULTS

The top 100 most cited Indian papers were published from 2020 to 2023, with the majority (75) in the year 2021, followed by 24 in 2022. They were cited a total of 56661 times (average - 566.61 times). The 242 authors of these HCPs were from 159 Indian organizations, and the articles were published in 60 journals. 29 % and 59 % of these HCPs received external funding support and were involved in international collaborations, respectively. There was poor collaboration among Indian research institutions and a dearth of funding from India. None of the Indian HCPs figured in the global 100 HCPs.

CONCLUSIONS

Although citations of research papers published from India increased during COVID-19, limited collaboration, inadequate funding, and subpar publications hindered Indian scientists. To enhance India's research landscape, we propose dismantling barriers, nurturing collaboration, and encouraging knowledge exchange among domestic institutions.

Global research trends in MERS-CoV: A comprehensive bibliometric analysis from 2012 to 2021

Background

The Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. So far, the cases of MERS-CoV have been reported in 27 countries. The virus causes severe health complications, resulting high mortality.

Aim

The current study aimed to evaluate the global research trends and key bibliometric indices in MERS-CoV research from 2012 to 2021.

Methods

A retrospective bibliometric and visualized study was conducted. The Science Citation Index Expanded Edition of Web of Science Core Collection database was utilized to retrieve published scientific literature on MERS-CoV. The retrieved publications were assessed for a number of bibliometric attributes. The data were imported into HistCite^TM and VOSviewer software to calculate the citations count and perform the visualization mapping, respectively. In addition, countries or regions collaboration, keywords analysis, and trend topics in MERS-CoV were assessed using the Bibliometrix: An R-tool.

Results

A total of 1,587 publications, published in 499 journals, authored by 6,506 authors from 88 countries or regions were included in the final analysis. Majority of these publications were published as research article (n = 1,143). Globally, these publications received 70,143 citations. The most frequent year of publication was 2016 (n = 253), while the most cited year was 2014 (11,517 citations). The most prolific author was Memish ZA (n = 94), while the most published journal was Emerging Infectious Diseases (n = 80). The United States of America (USA) (n = 520) and Saudi Arabia (n = 432) were the most influential and largest contributors to the MERS-CoV publications. The extensively studied research area was infectious diseases. The most frequently used author keywords other than search keywords were Saudi Arabia, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, epidemiology, transmission, spike protein, vaccine, outbreak, camel, and pneumonia.

Conclusion

This study provides an insight into MERS-CoV-related research for scientific community (researchers, academicians) to understand and expand the basic knowledge structure, potential collaborations, and research trend topics. This study can also be useful for policy makers. After the emergence of MERS-CoV, a significant increase in scientific production was observed in the next 4 years (2013–2016). In 2021, the trend topics in MERS-CoV-related research were COVID-19, clinical characteristics, and cytokine storm. Saudi Arabia had the strongest collaboration with the USA, while the USA had the highest collaboration with China.

Women Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development: Bibliometric Analysis and Emerging Research Trends

Women entrepreneurship has attracted the attention of academics and practitioners with a large body of research studies in recent years. Past literature reviews on women entrepreneurship have been criticized for their limited scope, lack of interdisciplinary perspective, and the need for more objective, technology-facilitated analytical methods. Our study provides insights into the development of women entrepreneurship research, including a new analysis through the lens of sustainable development and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bibliometric indicators and a systematic literature review approach are used to analyze literature published between 1991 and 2021 to better map the development of research and related opportunities for enhancing studies on women entrepreneurship. In addition to traditional bibliometric indicators such as publications, citations, etc., we used altmetrics, a new metric to assess the engagement and impact of publications based on social media presence. The Dimensions database has been used to assemble and arrange 3157 publications on women entrepreneurship, of which 843 publications are directly aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and 80 publications related to COVID-19. Our findings indicate that the top three SDG of interest to researchers are: SDG 8, decent work and economic growth; SDG 10, reducing inequalities; and SDG 5, gender equality. Within each SDG, we find concentrated studies on themes relating to the socio-political and small-medium enterprises, including family business management and gender biases, and their implications for sustainable development. Further, studies on the impact of COVID-19 reveal a significant bias towards women’s empowerment in ICT, digitization, and e-commerce while exposing the need for gender-moderated policies and governmental interventions. We offer suggestions for future studies on enabling and measuring the contributions of women’s entrepreneurship to sustainable development, including capital investments and the long-term impacts of the pandemic on women-led enterprises.

A Bibliometric Analysis of Research Publications of the Bucharest University of Economic Studies in Time of Pandemics: Implications for Teachers' Professional Publishing Activity

The epidemic has forced the academic world, regardless of nation of origin, to unify to find a response to the economic and social difficulties we confront as quickly as possible. This paper investigates how academic performance in terms of scientific publications, especially during the pandemic period, may constitute the premises for boosting professional well-being. The analysis focuses on the researchers and professors of the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, analysing in a comparative way the academic performance during the pandemic as a fundamental side of their professional career. To do that, two samples of scientific publications collected between January 2020 and December 2021 were investigated. The first sample comprised 1411 documents indexed in the WoS database, while the second one was formed by 876 documents indexed in the Scopus database. All samples were published during the pandemic and have the university's affiliation. The empirical findings indicated that the pandemic has created a boost in the number and quality of medical publications for the professors at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies. They created new multidisciplinary teams (economics and medicine), strengthening and widening national and international collaborations.

Pigeon Circovirus over Three Decades of Research: Bibliometrics, Scoping Review, and Perspectives

The pigeon circovirus (PiCV), first described in the literature in the early 1990s, is considered one of the most important infectious agents affecting pigeon health. Thirty years after its discovery, the current review has employed bibliometric strategies to map the entire accessible PiCV-related research corpus with the aim of understanding its present research landscape, particularly in consideration of its historical context. Subsequently, developments, current knowledge, and important updates were provided. Additionally, this review also provides a textual analysis examining the relationship between PiCV and the young pigeon disease syndrome (YPDS), as described and propagated in the literature. Our examination revealed that usages of the term 'YPDS' in the literature are characterizations that are diverse in range, and neither standard nor equivalent. Guided by our understanding of the PiCV research corpus, a conceptualization of PiCV diseases was also presented in this review. Proposed definitions and diagnostic criteria for PiCV subclinical infection (PiCV-SI) and PiCV systemic disease (PiCV-SD) were also provided. Lastly, knowledge gaps and open research questions relevant to future PiCV-related studies were identified and discussed.

The Trends and Content of Research Related to the Sustainable Development Goals: A Systemic Review

This study employed a comprehensive systematic review of the literature (SRL) process with the Content Analysis Toolkits for Academic Research (CATAR) for conducting a bibliometric analysis of the 2814 general SDG-related papers and 92 review papers selected from the Web of Science database from 2013 to 2022. The overview analysis found that the US and UK took the lead in publication and citation. The WHO and several universities were identified as the most prominent institutes around the globe. The field distribution of the most cited papers revealed the existence of a “strong sustainability” paradigm and the importance of science and technology. A landscape of 1123 papers was included in eight clusters according to the bibliographic coupling algorithms in the Multi-stage Document Clustering (MSDC) process. These clusters were then categorized into three groups, “synergies and trade-offs”, “networking”, and “systems analysis”, demonstrated in the theme maps. As for the 92 SDG-related review papers, most were shaped based on literature analysis without specified countries. Moreover, SDG 3 was identified as that exclusively studied in most papers. The information presented is expected to help research scholars, public sectors, and practitioners monitor, gather, check, analyze, and use the growing volume of SDG-related academic articles.

Virtual Laboratories- A historical review and bibliometric analysis of the past three decades

Online and virtual teaching-learning has been a panacea that most educational institutions adopted from the dire need created by COVID-19. We provide a comprehensive bibliometric study of 9523 publications on virtual laboratories in higher education covering the years 1991 to 2021. Influential bibliometrics such as publications and citations, productive countries, contributing institutions, funders, journals, authors, and bibliographic couplings were studied using the Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews (SPAR-4-SLR) protocol. A new metric to complement citations called Field Weighted Citation Impact was introduced that considers the differences in research behavior across disciplines. Findings show that 72% of the research work was published between 2011-and 2021, most likely due to digitalization, with the highest number of publications in 2020-2021 highlighting the impact of the pandemic. Top contributing institutions were from the developed economies of Spain, Germany, and the United States. The citation impact from publications with international co-authors is the highest, highlighting the importance of co-authoring papers with different countries. For the first time, Altmetrics in the context of virtual labs were studied though a very low correlation was observed between citations and Altmetrics Attention Score. Still, the overall percentage of publications with attention showed linear growth. Our work also highlights that virtual laboratory could play a significant role in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically SDG4-Quality Education, which largely remains under-addressed.

Analyzing and visualizing global research trends on COVID-19 linked to sustainable development goals

This study is intended to afford a comprehensive overview of the implications of COVID-19 on progress toward achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs) set out in the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda and the state of related research activities on COVID-19 linked to the SDGs. Bibliometric techniques and visual mapping are proposed as methodological tools to better approach the objectives of the present work. This includes: retrieving related publications from Scopus database, investigating the trends and growth trajectories of research works, and analyzing the scenarios post-COVID-19 either optimistic or pessimistic outlooks. The national and international contributions and collaboration toward this theme of research are further analyzed at countries, institutions, and sources levels. This analysis indicates that research works conducted on the impacts of COVID-19 on the achievement of the SDGs are still in the immaturity level. The global research productivity on this topic was just 160 documents (0.19% of total global research productivity in all fields of science with relevance to COVID-19). The implications of COVID-19 on good health and well-being, SDG-3, have attracted considerable attention. It is followed by SDG-13 that concerned with climate changes. The post-COVID-19 scenarios showed deep and justified worries in relation to achieving the SDGs by 2030. This study figures the major issues debated in the literature with respect to COVID-19 and its implications on the SDGs. The study, furthermore, attempts to assess the required actions to advance the SDGs post-COVID-19.

Bibliometric Analysis of International Scientific Production on Pharmacologic Treatments for SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 During 2020

Background

COVID-19 is causing a grave global health and economic crisis and the fight against the pandemic has led to unprecedented scientific activity. Bibliometrics could be a useful tool for guiding future researches lines and promoting international collaboration for an effective treatment. For this purpose, we have conducted a bibliometric analysis of scientific publications on drugs and therapies used to treat COVID-19 during 2020.

Methods

Data source: Web of Science. We gathered data on scientific production relating to drugs used to treat COVID-19. We calculated impact factors and analyzed production by institution, country, and journal, visualizing our results in bibliometric networks.

Results

In 1 year, production relating to COVID-19 exceeded 100 000 publications, with over 6,500 on Drugs and COVID-19. Research into hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, remdesivir, lopinavir and ritonavir, tocilizumab and convalescent plasma is particularly noteworthy. Mean citations/study range from 11.9 to 15.4. Producer institutions fall into three groups: one in the US and centered on Harvard Medical School; another in Europe led by INSERS; and another in China led by Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Production by journal is widespread but the Journal of Medical Virology, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, and American Journal of Transplantation are noteworthy.

Conclusions

The volume of research that is currently under way is comparable to the magnitude of the pandemic itself. Such a high volume of studies is infrequent and the impact they have achieved has no known precedent. The producing countries are those with highest incidence of the pandemic and greatest scientific potential; moreover, inter-agency and international collaboration has reached extraordinarily high levels.

Acquisition and User Behavior in Online Science Laboratories before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the closure of schools at every level, globally, forcing education to move online. Meeting the needs of students online for Science Lab classes, in particular, is a challenge since the physical labs are not available to the teachers or students. OLabs is a virtual Science Lab providing a complete learning environment of theory, experimental procedures, videos, animations, simulations, and assessments that capture real lab experiences with the relevant pedagogy. This study looks at the acquisition and behaviors of users, on the OLabs platform, during pre and COVID-19 times. Using Google Analytics, we observe that, during the pandemic time, users increasingly adopted OLabs as a new learning pedagogy for performing experiments as indicated by parameters like the number of users; the number of unique pages viewed per session; time spent on viewing content; bounce rate; and preference for content types such as theory, simulations, videos, and animations.