MISJUDGEMENTS AND SHORTCOMINGS IN THE MEASUREMENTS OF SClENTlFlC ACTlVlTlES IN LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

The bibliographic database widely used for measurement of scientific production (counting of publications) either for developed or developing countries is Science Citation Index. So then, only the contribution of each country to the ”mainstream” of world science is evaluated. In the case of LDCs this contribution is negligible. The use of international specialized or multidisciplinary databases for the measure of eight LDCs production is presented, and the results are compared to those provided by SC1 alone. Most of the specialized databases give more information than SC1 for each country, as well as a great deal of data and features of each field that can not be possibly obtained by using SC1 as unique data source. In the case of Cuba, Biosis and CA supply 17 and 15 times respectively as much information on Cuban scientific production in Biology and Chemistry than the SC1 in the same period of time. The use of Cuban local database and its comparison with international ones is also discussed.