Monitoring advances in chemical engineering

Abstract

This paper describes an approach to monitoring scientific progress in chemical engineering in order to operationalize concepts such as 'research performance' which can be used in the retrospective evaluation and the future anticipation of scientific research activities. We focus on various quantitative methods. Bibliometric methods form an important, but not the only, part of the work. The use of bibliometric approaches and measures is plagued by many problems. This is especially true for the more applied sciences, like chemical engineering. Nevertheless, there is very few research on the problem of the use of bibliometric indicators in applied sciences. The differences between the many disciplines can be very large, and therefore it is important to investigate this point thoroughly, for each major applied discipline. Only then can other possibilities to construct performance indicators (e.g., on a non-bibliometric quantitative base) be studied systematically. We proceeded along two main lines. First, a number of prestigeous journals is used as a data source. Secondly, outstanding scientists in chemical engineering have been identified, and their bibliographies have been analyzed. Using these different data sources, a variety of quantitative techniques is applied to elaborate the data and to construct (possible) indicators: publication analysis, (co4word analysis, citation analysis (including journal-to-journal citation data). Furthermore, recently developed advanced data-analytical techniques are used to display complicated data-relations. We thus exolore the role of auantitative. and in mrticular bibliometric techniques, ' in monitoring ahvances in chemical engineering. The usefulness of bibliometric indicators will be discussed in detail, additional methods and techniques will be presented.