The catalytic role of a research university and international partnerships in building research capacity in Peru: A bibliometric analysis

• Published in: PLoS neglected tropical diseases 2019-07, Vol.13 (7), p.e0007483-e0007483
• Main Authors: Belter, Christopher W, Garcia, Patricia J, Livinski, Alicia A, Leon-Velarde, Fabiola, Weymouth, Kristen H, Glass, Roger I
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academies and Institutes; Analysis; Authoring; Authorship; Awards and Prizes; Bibliographic coupling; Bibliometrics; Bibliometrics - history; Biomedical Research; Capacity Building; Catalysis; Citation indexes; Colleges & universities; Computer and Information Sciences; Countries; Databases, Bibliographic; Documents; Financing; Funding; Growth; History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Humans; Innovation; International Cooperation; Lead; Medical care quality; Medical research; Medicine and Health Sciences; Mentoring; Partnerships; People and places; Peru; Physicians; Physiology; Practice; Public health; Publication output; Publications - statistics & numerical data; Publishing - statistics & numerical data; Research and Analysis Methods; Research Design; Research facilities; Research funding; Research institutions; Research Personnel; Science Policy; Scientists; Scientometrics; Technology; Training; Trends; Tropical diseases; Universities
• ISSN: 1935-2735; 1935-2727; 1935-2735
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0007483

In Peru, the past three decades have witnessed impressive growth in biomedical research catalyzed from a single research university and its investigators who secured international partnerships and funding. We conducted a bibliometric analysis of publications by Peruvian authors to understand the roots of this growth and the spread of research networks within the country. For 1997-2016, publications from Web of Science with at least one author affiliated with a Peruvian institution were examined by year, author affiliations, funding agencies, co-authorship linkages, and research topics. From 1997-2016, the annual number of publications from Peru increased 9-fold from 75 to 672 totaling 6032. Of these, 56% of the articles had co-authors from the US, 13% from the UK, 12% from Brazil, and 10% from Spain. Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH) was clearly the lead research institution noted on one-third of publications. Of the 20 most published authors, 15 were Peruvians, 14 trained at some point at UPCH, and 13 received advanced training abroad. Plotting co-authorships documented the growth of institutional collaborations, the robust links between investigators and some lineages of mentorship. This analysis suggests that international training of Peruvian physician-scientists who built and sustained longstanding international partnerships with funding accelerated quality research on diseases of local importance. The role of a single research university, UPCH, was critical to advance a culture of biomedical research. Increased funding from the Peruvian Government and its Council for Science, Technology and Innovation will be needed to sustain this growth in the future. Middle-income countries might consider the Peruvian experience where long-term research and training partnerships yielded impressive advances to address key health priorities of the country.