Presentation

Verba volant, scripta manent

 

 

In this new digital edition of the Atlas of Mexican Science (ACM) we reiterate its original mission to become a reliable source of statistical information on Mexican activity in the fields of science and technology. On this occasion we have expanded the coverage on the production and impact of Mexican science in the period 1900-2013. We have the traditional sections on the global indicators for the periods 1900-1979 and 1980-2013, the section with the indicators by area of ​​knowledge and by state. We also include the section with updated data on the National System of Researchers (SNI). Among the novelties included in this 2014 edition is the evolution of the number of researchers by specialty and area of ​​knowledge. with appreciable increases in almost all areas between the 2009 data and the new 2013 data. We have included on this occasion, for the first time, data on the number of patents registered in the Mexican Institute of Intellectual Property (IMPI) for the period 2008-2013, and with emphasis on the number of applications submitted by Mexican residents. The numerical data that we have compiled for this edition are included in detail in our electronic portal:

http://www.atlasdelacienciamexicana.org

Through this electronic address it will be possible to maintain a communication between the public and our work team, receive messages with requests for more specific information or about corrections, additions or updates of that data.

 

Areas of knowledge

In order to systematically present the information we have generated in the MCA, we decided to group it into ten areas of knowledge: biological sciences, physical sciences, chemical sciences, earth sciences, mathematics, engineering, medicine, agro-sciences, social sciences and humanities. Each of these areas is subdivided, in turn, into specialties that more accurately locate the activity of each researcher. In some cases it is not possible to locate a specialty in only one of the ten areas of knowledge: for example, physicochemistry or physical-mathematics are specialties shared by more than one area. In these cases we prefer to duplicate the information about publications and citations but not the data about the academic plant: each researcher was assigned to only one of the ten areas of knowledge. When the researcher's information came from the SNI. We decided to take the area that he himself selected in his academic record. In the other cases, the assignment of a researcher to a specific area was determined by their institutional affiliation: department, school, institute, etc.

 

Academic plant

 

On this occasion we included information on 20,000 researchers in the ten areas of knowledge. Most of the academic records of these researchers come from the SNI databases. In many cases we complete the academic information of the researchers by directly consulting the electronic portals of the institutions that develop research projects. In the ACM electronic portal we have located two catalogs of researchers: on the one hand, of the researchers who are attached to Mexican institutions, and separately a catalog of Mexican researchers located in foreign institutions. Their respective files came from the SNI data that now has a special registry for these researchers. Given the extension of these catalogs, we have only included the hypertext version in our electronic portal.

 

Scientific production and impact

 

The basic bibliographic information that we have used to document the Mexican production of original articles in mainstream journals comes from the electronic banks of the lnstitut Thomson Reuter: Science Citation lndex, Social Science Citation lndex. Arts & Humanities Citation Index and the Journal Citation Reports, that is, what is now known as the Web of Science (WoS). The same happens with the statistical information that we have generated for the citations to said articles. We wish to highlight the work developed by our group of collaborators in bibliometrics that allowed to include in this edition, both the information on the production of research articles and the citations that they have generated in the international indexes.

 

Global indicators

 

In this section we have included the statistical information that allows us to contrast the development of the ten areas of knowledge. We have indicators on the academic training of researchers, distributions by gender, academic area, geographical area and the level of geographical deconcentration in each of the academic areas. For the data recovered on Mexican scientific production in the first half of the 20th century, we generated a series of maps on the collaboration that was presented between the different authors in each area of ​​knowledge and that allows to appreciate the degree of integration of the scientific community in the first stage of activity of Mexican science. We close this section with an indicator that contrasts the scientific development of each federal entity with its economic development. We consider that this indicator allows highlighting the states that have had a scientific and cultural tradition despite not having a sustained economic development.

 

Indicators by federal entities

 

In this edition we decided to concentrate the statistical information generated for each area of knowledge so that it is easier to have a comprehensive view of the different aspects of each of them. We have distributions of researchers by specialty, geographical and institutional, as well as the countries and institutions where they obtained their doctorate degree. The evolution of scientific production and impact in each area can be clearly seen by comparing the data we have recorded in the periods 1980-1989, 1990-1999, 2000-2009 and 2010-2013. In particular, in this period it is possible to identify the maturation of two academic sectors: the state universities and the Conacyt centers.

National System of Researchers

We have included a series of statistical tables that allow us to directly appreciate the evolution of the SNI by area of knowledge, by academic level and by state. This information was provided by the same National System of Researchers (SNI).

Finally, we must mention that we have systematically used acronyms and acronyms of Mexican institutions that develop research programs. In this edition we do not include an index of these acronyms and acronyms because the ACM electronic portal has integrated these indexes in a broad manner. We hope that readers are familiar with these terms and that it will be quicker to appreciate the tables and figures with the statistical information that we have included in this edition. Likewise, we have included in our electronic portal the relationships of the institutions we have grouped in the following sectors in each area of ​​knowledge: state universities, universities and private higher education institutions, Conacyt centers, national laboratories, agricultural sector, health sector , private laboratories and technological institutes. Due to the weight of its contribution to the national scientific activity, the percentage contributions of the following institutions are explicitly shown: UNAM, IPN, UAM, Cinvestav, Colmex and CIMMyT.

Indicators by Federative Entity

On this occasion we have the support of the following institutions that has allowed us to continue developing the generation of statistical bases and indicators on the Mexican activity in science and technology and, of course, the publication of the ACM 2014 in its printed versions, on CD and in our electronic portal:

• Mexican Academy of Sciences
• IPN Research and Advanced Studies Center
• Mathematics Research Center
• National Council of Science and Technology
• Scientific and Technological Advisory Forum
• Autonomous Institute of Mexico
• Thematic Network on Complexity, Science and Society
• Thematic Network on High Energy Physics
• Secretary of Cienda. Technology and Innovation of the Federal District
• National Autonomous University of Mexico

 

To all these institutions and friends, our sincere gratitude

 

Miguel Ángel Pérez Angón

September of 2012