Medical and biomedical research in Brazil: a comparison of Brazilian and international scientific performance

Abstract

This article compares Brazil's performance in science and technology investment to that of other countries, in relation to basic research, application of knowledge, and researcher training. The article shows a high correlation between GDP and scientific and technological performance in developed countries such as the United States, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Italy, China, Russia, and Spain, and demonstrates how this occurs in medium development countries like Mexico, India, and Brazil. The data presented were obtained from various sources: the Research Group Directory and Lattes Platform of the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq-MCT); Science Indicators; Institute for Scientific Information (ISI); World Development Indicators (WDI); Web of Science of the ISI; and the CAPES FAPESP agreement, Brazil. The comparison to higher-performance countries gave a clearer grasp of Brazil's health research challenge in order to increase the citation indices and better qualify such research.

Comparative research in health; Science and technology policy; Brazilian technological development; Investment in health research