Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

The rapid, massive infection of the scientific literature and authors by COVID-19

John P.A. Ioannidis, Maia Salholz-Hillel, Kevin W. Boyack, Jeroen Baas
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.15.422900
John P.A. Ioannidis
1Departments of Medicine, of Epidemiology and Population Health, of Biomedical Data Science, and of Statistics, and Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS), Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA
2Meta-Research Innovation Center Berlin (METRIC-B), QUEST, Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: jioannid@stanford.edu
Maia Salholz-Hillel
2Meta-Research Innovation Center Berlin (METRIC-B), QUEST, Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Kevin W. Boyack
3SciTech Strategies, Inc., Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Jeroen Baas
4Research Intelligence, Elsevier B.V., Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Preview PDF
Loading

ABSTRACT

Importance COVID-19 is a major global crisis and the scientific community has been mobilized to deal with this crisis.

Objective To estimate the extent to which the scientific workforce in different fields has been engaged publishing papers relative to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design, setting, and participants We evaluated Scopus (data cut, December 1, 2020) for all indexed published papers and preprints relevant to COVID-19. We mapped this COVID-19 literature in terms of its authors across 174 subfields of science according to the Science Metrix classification. We also evaluated the extent to which the most influential scientists across science (based on a composite citation indicator) had published COVID-19-related research. Finally, we assessed the features of authors who published the highest number of COVID-19 publications and of those with the highest impact in the COVID-19 field based on the composite citation indicator limited to COVID-19 publications.

Main outcomes and measures Publishing scientists (authors) and their published papers and citation impact.

Results 84,180 indexed publications were relevant to COVID-19 including 322,279 unique authors. The highest rates of COVID-19 publications were seen for authors classified in Public Health and in Clinical Medicine, where 11.3% (6,388/56,516) and 11.1% (92,570/833,060) of authors, respectively, had published on COVID-19. Almost all (173/174) subfields (except for Automobile Design & Engineering) had some authors publishing on COVID-19. Among active scientists at the top 2% of citation impact, 15,803 (13.3%) had published on COVID-19 in their publications in the first 11 months of 2020.

The rates were the highest in the fields of Clinical Medicine (27.7%) and Public Health (26.8%). In 83 of the 174 subfields of science, at least one in ten active, influential authors in that field had authored something on COVID-19. 65 authors had already at least 30 (and up to 133) COVID-19 publications each. Among the 300 authors with the highest composite citation indicator for COVID-19 publications, 26 were journalists or editors publishing news stories or editorials in prestigious journals; most common countries for the remaining were China (n=77), USA (n=66), UK (n=27), and Italy (n=20).

Conclusions and relevance The scientific literature and publishing scientists have been rapidly and massively infected by COVID-19 creating opportunities and challenges. There is evidence for hyper-prolific productivity.

Competing Interest Statement

METRICS has been funded by grants from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. METRIC-B has been funded by a visiting Einstein fellowship from the Einstein Foundation and Stiftung Charite to JPAI. JB is an Elsevier employee and Elsevier runs Scopus which is the source of the data.

Footnotes

  • Funding: none

  • Data sharing: all the key data are in the manuscript.

  • Conflicts of interest

  • METRICS has been funded by grants from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. METRIC-B has been funded by a visiting Einstein fellowship from the Einstein Foundation and Stiftung Charite to JPAI. JB is an Elsevier employee and Elsevier runs Scopus which is the source of the data.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted December 16, 2020.
Download PDF
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
The rapid, massive infection of the scientific literature and authors by COVID-19
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
The rapid, massive infection of the scientific literature and authors by COVID-19
John P.A. Ioannidis, Maia Salholz-Hillel, Kevin W. Boyack, Jeroen Baas
bioRxiv 2020.12.15.422900; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.15.422900
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
The rapid, massive infection of the scientific literature and authors by COVID-19
John P.A. Ioannidis, Maia Salholz-Hillel, Kevin W. Boyack, Jeroen Baas
bioRxiv 2020.12.15.422900; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.15.422900

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Scientific Communication and Education
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (2524)
  • Biochemistry (4971)
  • Bioengineering (3478)
  • Bioinformatics (15198)
  • Biophysics (6890)
  • Cancer Biology (5385)
  • Cell Biology (7727)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (4525)
  • Ecology (7143)
  • Epidemiology (2059)
  • Evolutionary Biology (10217)
  • Genetics (7507)
  • Genomics (9776)
  • Immunology (4835)
  • Microbiology (13197)
  • Molecular Biology (5136)
  • Neuroscience (29405)
  • Paleontology (203)
  • Pathology (836)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (1462)
  • Physiology (2134)
  • Plant Biology (4739)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1008)
  • Synthetic Biology (1338)
  • Systems Biology (4008)
  • Zoology (768)