Abstract
Purpose:
Analyze global reach and impact of National Eye Institute (NEI) funding, training and collaborative research programs; identify trends and potential research directions and collaboration using bibliometric tools.
Methods:
We used Web of Science (WoS; Thomson Reuters) to identify publications in which at least one author’s address was outside the U.S., and for which ≥1 NEI grant was acknowledged, the National Eye Institute was identified as a funder or an NEI researcher was a co-author from 2008-2014. WoS analytics (publications/year; productivity/author, author institutions, funding agencies, journals) were analyzed. Citation counts and networks provide additional insights into the impact of NEI programs.
Results:
4834 papers met our criteria. Publications have increased steadily to >850/year. The number of author and papers/author has increased. In 2008, 47 wrote 3-8 papers each; in 2013,385 researchers authored ≥3. NEI staff are among the most-prolific (max. 61 papers by 1 author). The US contributed authors on 92% of the papers, but a total of 100 countries contributed. China (970), Germany (739), Canada (529), Japan (465), Australia (407), and the UK (479) lead; 32 countries were represented on 1-3 papers. The WoS algorithm classified 29% as “ophthalmology,” 18% as neurosciences, and 5% as genetics, the trend is to decreasing ophthalmology and increasing basic science. ≥500 journals published these papers. 9.5% appear in IOVS; 10 of the top-25 journals are vision-related titles, together publishing 23%. 603 agencies funded ≥5 papers each. The highest-cited paper (>2080 citations) was funded by >25 agencies in 8 countries, with authors from11. In addition to NEI, 17 NIH institutes provided grant support. Institutional affiliations include many NIH staff (>1300 papers).
Conclusions:
In 1995, NEI explicitly acknowledged the importance of collaboration between the NEI and researchers around the world. NEI now supports ≥25 grants and 35 sites in 15 countries. Our findings demonstrate global impact, with NEI support producing publications increasing from 47 countries in 2008 to 75 in 2014, totaling 100. More than 750 (15.5%) papers have been cited at least 25 times; ≥2850 have been cited at least 5 times, and average citations/paper=15.54.