روند پيشرفت علم ايران در رشته هاي كشاورزي و منابع طبيعي: مطالعه علم سنجي

Trend Analysis of Scientific Progress in Agriculture and Natural Resources Fields in Iran: A Scientometric Study

It is a must for policy makers to have a good understanding and evaluation of academic activities to be able to develop suitable programs. In this regard, scientometric has played a valuable role in providing the required data, especially the quality as well as the quantity of published articles. This research project aimed to investigate the trend and progress of Iranian scientific articles indexed by SCI (ISI) and CAB abstract databases from 2002 to 2006 in agriculture and natural resources fields, and comparing Iranian articles with 9 selected countries. Reasons for selecting this two databases are that SCI (ISI) with indexing about 4400 journals and calculating citations, has acquisitioned fame in basic sciences especially in chemistry science, and CAB Abstract among 7 prominent databases have most covering of primary agricultural and natural resources journals and moreover indexed scientific journals with English abstract (such as Iranian journals), also indexes about 9000 specialized journals of agriculture and natural resources. Based on the research findings, Iran scientific articles in most fields of agriculture and natural resources have showed considerable growth during 2002 to 2006 years. Soil and Water field has showed the highest growth rate in CAB database with 154 percent average annual growth rate and after that Forestry and Environment, Agricultural Engineering, Food Science and Technology, Agricultural Extension and Education, Agricultural Machinery, and Fisheries, respectively with 108, 96, 77, 71, 68, and 54 percent annual growth rate showed the highest ranks. Total articles of Iran from agriculture and natural resources disciplines in SCI and CAB Abstracts databases had respectively 30 and 34 percent average annual growth rate. Iran, among 10 selected countries, ranks 8 at SCI and 4 at CAB databases for its amount of published articles, in year 2006.