Razi Journal of Medical Sciences

  Background : Currently, the scientific output indexed in databases such as ISI is the major criteria for evaluation and ranking of countries, researchers, institutes and universities in the world. Each country's share in the world's scientific output in general and specifically in a specific field will be evaluated accordingly. Therefore, determination of the rate of growth of articles from Iranian authors in the ISI database in the field of immunology, its distribution and growth in different years, average citation per paper in comparison with the Iranian and world average, co-authorship, the most cited papers, the most prolific authors, the most prolific Iranian universities and institutions, are the main objectives of the study.

  Methods: The study area is scientometrics and the necessity of the survey methods and citation analysis has been used.

  Results: Findings show that from 1974 to the end of 2010 a total of 1775 articles of Iranian writers in the immunology field have entered into ISI Web of Science. According to the results, the number of articles has been high in the recent years. Most collaboration of the Iranian authors has been with their counterparts from USA. Immunology articles have had the most interaction with the field of transplantation. Most of the articles of Iranian scholars in the field of immunology are published in the Transplantation Proceedings journal. Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) is the most active center and Ardeshir Ghavamzadeh is the most prolific author. The costs of 10.99% articles is provided by Iranian and foreign universities and institutes.

  Conclusion: Iranian papers in the field of immunology have steadily increased and in the recent years have reached its peak. Iranian immunologists have disposition to co-authorship with their counterparts from other countries which is almost the same with other subject areas in Iran. The average citation per paper in the field of immunology is higher than that of the Iranian average and lowest than the global average, much lower than global and Middle East average in the field of immunology. Tehran University of Medical Sciences is the most prolific university. Also, the most prolific authors are affiliated to the TUMS. Domestic and foreign universities and institutions in financing research have had little share.