Funding research output at the University of Peradeniya: a scientometric analysis

Abstract

Introduction

Universities are institutions that perform a vital role in the contemporary societies by educating and generating knowledge. Research and development (R&D) is essential to build an institute’s research production potential in all sectors. It assists the progress of the institute’s growth and brings necessary changes in all divisions. Most of the research funding comes from two main resources, corporations and government. With the steady growth of R & D investment, funding has been playing a very significant role in research and publishing. Scientometrics is the study dealing with the quantification of written communications, which helps, in the measurement of the published knowledge. It reflects the pattern of growth literature, Inter relationship among different branches of knowledge, productivity, authorship pattern, and degree of collaboration, pattern of collection building, and their use. The University of Peradeniya is a state university in Sri Lanka, funded by the University Grants Commission established as the University of Ceylon in 1942. It hosts nine faculties (including the newly added Management Faculty), three postgraduate institutes, 10 centres, 73 departments, and teaches about 11,000 students in the fields of Medicine, Agriculture, Arts, Science, Engineering, Dental Sciences, Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, Management and Allied Health Science. It claims to have the largest government endowment by a higher education institution in Sri Lanka, based on its large staff and faculties/departments. In this study, we evaluate the funding supported Social Science Citation Index papers and Science Citation Index in University of Peradeniya in order to carry out a quantitative measurement on the influence of funding agencies on research output.

The main objectives of this paper are to identify the total number of SSCI papers and funding-supported SSCI papers, the total number of SCI papers and funding-supported SCI papers, analyze the top three funding agencies offered support to the University of Peradeniya and to find out the types of funding sources received by the University of Peradeniya to carry out research and publish papers.

Methodology

The data for the study was extracted from the Web of Science database which is a scientific and indexing service managed by Thomson Reuters. We have analysed the funding supported SSCI papers and SCI papers published by the faculties of the University of Peradeniya. The following search strategy has been used to extract data: ADDRESS-ABS-KEY (“Peradeniya University”) OR ADDRESS-ABS-KEY (“University of Peradeniya”) AND PUBYEAR (All years) and further by limiting the funding agencies, the data were downloaded. Bibliographic details such as Journals, research areas, collaboration, etc., were downloaded in CSV format and further analyzed using Microsoft Excel.

Results and Discussion

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The above table presents the top three funding agencies in the University of Peradeniya. In funding supported SSCI papers, the maximum number of papers comes from the National Research Council of Sri Lanka with 59 records, amounting to 16.76 per cent of funding-supported SCI papers followed by National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka with 53 papers, amounting 15.05 percent. WELCOME TRUST comes last with 24 papers amounting 6.81 percent.

This study revealed that a total of 24 funding supported SSCI and 352 funding supported SCI papers were published by the University of Peradeniya. It is clearly seen that SCI has published a maximum of 2339 papers in which 352 papers are supported by funding agencies and SSCI has published a maximum of 221 papers in which 24 papers are supported by funding agencies In funding supported SSCI papers, the maximum number of publications comes from the Welcome Trust with 7 papers, amounting to 29.16 per cent of funding-supported SSCI papers followed by Bill Melinda Gates with same number of papers, amounting to 29.16 per cent. However, the Australian National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) comes last with 6 papers amounting 25 percent. In the type of funding sources the University of Peradeniya falls into this category in the funding supported SCI papers and falls into funding source diversified type category in the funding supported SSCI papers.

Conclusion In this study, a scientometric analysis was undertaken to show the present state of funding supported SSCI papers and SCI papers of the University of Peradeniya. The results of the present study clearly showed that funding sources are diversified in the case of SSCI papers. However, it is total contrast in case of SCI papers, for this funding sources are dominated by double funding agencies predominated type.