Pesquisadores do domínio das Doenças Tropicais Negligenciadas no Brasil: indicadores científicos do período de 2015 a 2018
Authors: Sobral Natanael Vitor , de Miranda Zeny Duarte , Soares Camila Braz , Reis Giselly Alves 
Published: June 2019

This work aims to develop methodological processes for the production of scientific indicators on researchers in the NTD field in Brazil (2015 to 2018) and to consolidate them from multi-tool experiments, which will contribute to the characterization of this important field. In this purpose, the following procedures were carried out: identification of the research universe: in order to understand the NTD field in Brazil, from its teaching or research institutions, we opted for the use of open data from the following institutions: a ) Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz), considering the medical staff; b) Graduate Programs in Tropical Health and Infectious Diseases; and c) National Institutes of Science and Technology (INCT) with emphasis on NTD issues; data collection: the Lattes CNPq Platform was considered as the main information source; data processing: from this, the ScriptLattes tool was used in order to download the publication data in .html and .ris, allowing a series of analytical operations on these registers. Data mining tools, spreadsheets and social network analysis (The Vantage Point®, Microsoft Excel® and NetDraw®) were also used for the purpose of quantitative analysis; presentation of the results: in order to socialize the results of the processes undertaken, the data were organized for presentation. As main results, 41320 bibliographical productions were identified, with emphasis on articles in periodicals (16977). 2015 was the most productive year with 11599 publications and 2018 the least productive with 7079. Such behavior should be observed with attention, since the collections were carried out in February 2019, and not all researchers updated their curricula with the information of the journals Qualis of the journals (parameterized in Medicine II), it is noticed that 22% of the publications are classified among the superior Qualis (A1 and A2), even in view of the possibility of spraying due to the multiple areas of formation and researchers. With regard to the training of researchers, the field of medical and health sciences is highlighted, with a strong presence of Collective Health, which represents the critical base of the field of health research in Brazil. Also noteworthy is the good ranking of the areas of History and Education, since they are not subordinated to the great area of Health. 17.27% of the researchers have a scholarship from the CNPq, the PQ2 category being the most representative. Also noteworthy are: the reduction in participation and organization of events, probably as an impact of the systematic reduction of resources; the growth in the production of articles, which is an average publication that is less expensive and has a higher score in institutional evaluations; and the high degree of collaboration. Each researcher, on average, has 22.9 co-authors, a very high index for the 4-year period, indicating the interactive nature of the field and reinforcing the importance of scientific collaboration for the advancement of discoveries in the NTDs. Finally, the present research highlights the support of the methodological processes elaborated and used as a possibility for the improvement of the evaluation of Brazilian scientific research.