2.5 Major fields of science
Aiming at identifying the fields of research where Greek research teams were most active and successful, Greek publications were classified into the six major fields of science “Natural Sciences”, “Engineering & Technology”, “Medical & Health Sciences”, “Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences”, “Social Sciences” and “Humanities” and their subcategories, according to the “Revised Field of Science and Technology Classification” (Frascati Manual). The results of this classification corresponding to the entire period between 2006-2020, are presented in Figure 2.5.1.
Most publications by Greek institutions belong to the scientific field "Natural Sciences" (42.2% for 2020), while second in ranking is the scientific field "Medical & Health Sciences", which occupies a percentage of 41.2% (2020). The scientific field "Engineering and Technology" has the third place with 22.0% (2020), followed by the scientific fields "Social Sciences" with a share of 11.3% and "Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences", with 2.9%. Τhe scientific field "Humanities" has the lowest share of 2.2%. It should be pointed out that the low number of publications in this scientific field is to be expected, given that the characteristics of research and publications in the Humanities are quite different from those of other fields: research and publication rates are slower while scientific communication is still maintained by monograph publications and a large number of articles are also published in languages other than English.
Figure 2.5.2 tracks the number of Greek publications in the subcategories of the six major fields of science. Data refer to the most recent 5-year period, 2016-2020.
Figure 2.5.3 presents the “field-normalised citation score” of Greek publications for the 5-year period 2016-2020 in the six major fields of science. This indicator is the ratio of the average number of citations received by Greek publications to the world average of citations of the same time period and scientific subject field. The normalisation was carried out at the level of each article/publication according to the Web of Science scientific subject fields. In the case of a publication being attributed to more than one subject field, a mean value of the fields was calculated. The field-normalised citation score or “citation score” was calculated using software developed by EKT. A value greater than 1 indicates that the impact of Greek publications is higher than the world average.
For the period 2016-2020, Greek publications surpassed or approached the world average across most fields, displaying citation scores from 0.99 to 1,47. All fields of science (“Natural Sciences”, “Medical & Health Sciences”, “Engineering & Technology”, “Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences” and “Humanities”) exceed world average except for Social Sciences (0.99).
Figure 2.5.4 breaks down the main six fields of science into specialized thematic areas, areas in which Greek publications display relative citation scores greater than the world average.
Figure 2.5.5. presents an activity index of fields of science and specialized thematic areas of the Greek publications in the form of a bi-dimensional location of strong versus weak-performing thematic areas. The index compares the Greek production to the world performance in a ranking from -100 to +100. 0 indicates absolute balance, while positive scores indicate greater Greek production and negative scores indicate the opposite. Broken in four squares, the following four combinations are represented: low activity-high impact, high activity-high impact, low activity-low impact, high activity-low impact.
In the high activity-high impact category, the thematic area «allergy» records the highest relative citation score (2.49) with an activity index of 55.58 (belonging to “Medical and Health Sciences” field of science).
