Global research output of nanobiotechnology research: a scientometrics study

An effective scientometric analysis based on SCOPUS database was conducted to evaluate nanobiotechnology research from a different perspective for the period 2003–2012. Nanobiotechnology has been intensively investigated by bibliometric methods due to its technological importance and expected impacts on economic activity. The present study analyses nanobiotechnology research output during 2003–2012 on different parameters, including the growth, global publications share and citation impact, share of international collaborative papers and contributions of major collaborative partner countries. A total of 114,684 papers were published during 10 years, which received 2,503,795 citations with an average of 21.83 citations per paper. It has been observed that during 2003–2012, USA held the first position by number of publications (34,736), h-index (349), g-index (541), hg-index (434.52) and p-index (326.47). Developing countries such as India, China, South Korea and Canada showed increasing trends in their publications and their activity index also showed increasing trends. Top 10 institutions contributed 7.16% share of total publications. Masssachusetts Institute of Technology, USA received the highest h-index (120) among the top 10 institutions. Biomaterials (1631) was the top journal of publication output; Nano Letters had the highest impact with an average citation per paper (73.86) and American Chemical Society received the highest h-index (158) among the top 10 journals.