Back to The Emergence of Tissue Engineering as a Research Field

Bibliometric Analysis of Core Papers Fundamental to Tissue Engineering

II. Introduction

CHI Research, Inc. was engaged by the National Science Foundation through a subcontract to Abt Associates to undertake a bibliometric analysis of the emerging area of tissue engineering with the intent of describing quantitatively NSF's role in the area and examining the co-authorship structure of the field.

The project consisted of five parts:

1. Identifying core papers fundamental to tissue engineering
   
   
2. Constructing a database of information on the papers
   
   
3. Analyzing the nature and extent of NSF's overall role in the field as revealed through funding acknowledgements on papers
   
   
4. Developing representations of coauthorship information for leading authors in the field, with indications of NSF's presence.
   
   
5. An analysis of international patenting in tissue engineering

This report describes each of these steps in turn. The first section describes how the foundation for the analysis was carefully laid through development of a sophisticated methodology developed specifically to identify core papers fundamental to tissue engineering. After this, a basic description is offered of the growth of tissue engineering, as revealed in the full paper set and in a special set of papers that use the term "tissue engineering" in their abstract or title. There follows a quantitative analysis of NSF's role as revealed through acknowledgments of funding reported on papers. Then maps and tables are presented that together reveal the patterns of coauthorship in the field and NSF's presence within the oeuvre of leading authors. Finally an analysis of international patenting in tissue engineering is reported.

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