Geographical characterization of the scientific performance in Mexico (1995–2015)

• Published in: Scientometrics 2023-03, Vol.128 (3), p.1785-1799
• Main Authors: Flores-Vargas, Xochitl, González-Brambila, Claudia Noemí, Pérez-Angón, Miguel Ángel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bibliometrics; Computer Science; Education; Higher education institutions; Information Storage and Retrieval; Library Science; Public policy; Research facilities
• ISSN: 0138-9130; 1588-2861
• DOI: 10.1007/s11192-023-04632-6

The Mexican scientific production published in mainstream journals included in the Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics) for the period 1995–2015 is analyzed. To this purpose, the bibliometric data of the 32 states were organized into five groups according to the following criteria: research production, institutional sectors, and number of research centers. Our findings suggest that there has been an important deconcentration of the scientific activities mainly towards public state universities as a consequence of various public policies. While institutions located in Mexico City (CX) have published, during this period, 48.1% of the whole Mexican scientific production, there are two other groups of states with rather different productivity: 13 of them published 40% of the output and the rest of the entities (18) just published 11%. Our findings suggest that the highest research performance corresponds to those federal entities where there are branches of higher education institutions located in CX. We also identify those institutional sectors that contribute importantly to a specific research output for each federal entity. The results of this study could be useful to improve science and technology public policies in each state.