Brazil experiences first scientific production decline since 1996

A recent study indicates that Brazil’s production of scientific articles experienced a 7.4% decline in 2022, marking the country’s first such downturn since 1996.

This rate of decline, the steepest among the 51 countries surveyed, matches that of Ukraine, a country facing wartime conditions throughout most of 2022.

The data, gathered by Agência Bori and scientific publication publisher Elsevier, considered countries producing over 10,000 articles in 2021, representing about 95% of global scientific output.

From the Elsevier Scopus database, 23 countries including Brazil, and leading research nations like the USA, England, and France, were found to have declining scientific outputs.

Estêvão Gamba, a scientometrist from Bori Agency, emphasized the significance of Brazil’s drop in scientific production.

Comparing 2020 and 2021 figures of 77,000 and 80,000 published articles respectively, he noted a fall to 74,000 in 2022, underscoring a troubling departure from consistent albeit slow growth trends.

Contributors to Brazil’s shrinkage include the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and persistent lack of funding for science.

The impact of these factors may persist in the coming years due to the long duration of research and publication processes.

Despite the decline in certain countries, global scientific production increased by 6.1% in 2022.

Leading research producers were China, the US, and India, with Brazil ranking 14th.

While the number of published articles is an important metric, the quality of these publications is also significant.

Though the study did not include quality metrics, future investigation of this area is planned.

Gamba suggests that, in addition to the decline in production, the quality of Brazilian scientific articles may have potentially decreased.