title: Ireland's contribution to urology and nephrology research in the new millennium: a bibliometric analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Bibliometrics is the statistical analysis of written publications. Bibliometric analyses have been performed across a range of biomedical disciplines. The aim of this study was to provide a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative analysis of Irish urology and nephrology research and to analyse how this compares internationally.
  
  
  METHODS
  We performed a retrospective bibliometric analysis of the top 20 ranking journals in the field of "Urology and Nephrology" based on their 5 years impact factor, as obtained from the ISI Journal Citation Report database over the 15-year study period, 2000-2015. Utilising the Pubmed database, a search phrase was constructed using country of affiliation, year of publication and journal title. The abstracts of the Irish publications identified were analysed for their institution of origin, article theme and content.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 67,740 article abstracts were analysed over the 15 years study period. As anticipated, the USA accounted for the largest number of publications by a country [28,206 (41.64 % of all articles)]. Ireland contributed 347 articles in total (0.51 % of all articles); however, ranking according to population per million was 13th worldwide. Ireland's contribution to urology and nephrology research was highest in the BJUI-British Journal of Urology International [76 articles (21.90 % of Irish total)].
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We believe this study to be the largest bibliometric analysis in the field of urology and nephrology internationally. This study provides a novel overview of the current Irish urology- and nephrology-related research, and examines how our results compare within the international community.
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Cork University Hospital, Wilton, Cork, Ireland. oconnoea@tcd.ie.
authors.forename: E M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: O'Connor
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Cork University Hospital, Wilton, Cork, Ireland.
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Nason
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Cork University Hospital, Wilton, Cork, Ireland.
authors.forename: M F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: O'Brien
mesh_terms: D015706:Bibliometrics; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007494:Ireland; D055811:Journal Impact Factor; D009398:Nephrology; D039781:PubMed; D011642:Publications / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014572:Urology
keywords: Bibliometric analysis; Nephrology; Research; Urology