Jornal Global de Biologia, Agricultura e Ciências da Saúde

Abstrato

Scientific Research in Saudi Universities: Science Thrives in the Desert

Khalid Awad Al-Mutairi & Salman Abdo Al-Shami

Objective: This study aims to analyze the research publications in 25 Saudi public universities for the past 6 years and to identify the areas of strength. This study also aims to investigate the trend of research publications in Saudi Arabia for the past 25 years.

Materials and Methods: Research productivity of 25 public Saudi universities was analyzed from 2008 to 2013. Total number of publications and average number of publications per year were calculated for each university. The general trend of publications in Saudi Arabia was analyzed for the past 25 years (1988-2013) and research areas of strength (2008-2013) were also obtained.

Results: A total of 42936 documents published by the 25 Saudi universities during the last 6 years were retrieved. Two groups of universities were identified. The first group consists of six universities with total number of publications 35058 papers and accounted of 82%. The second group includes 19 universities with total number of 7878 papers published and accounted for almost 18%. The highest number of publications of 15044 (35%) was produced by KSU (3009 papers /year). However, SEU had the lowest average number of publications of 2 papers per year. The present study showed that strong research areas in Saudi universities for the past 6 years are engineering, medicine and physics and astronomy. Meanwhile, the research publication trend in Saudi Arabia for the past 25 years (1988-2013) was slow and lagging from 1988 until 2008 and had remarkable increase thereafter (exponential regression model R2=0.851).

Conclusion: Research publications in Saudi Arabia are obviously increasing with remarkable role of the top universities. Engineering, physics and astronomy and medicine were identified as the areas of strength in Saudi.