title: Unbalanced international collaboration affects adversely the usefulness of countries' scientific output as well as their technological and social impact.
abstract: The unbalanced international scientific collaboration as cause of misleading information on the country's contribution to the scientific world output was analyzed. ESI Data Base (Thomson Reuters' InCites), covering the scientific production of 217 active countries in the period 2010-2014 was used. International collaboration implicates in a high percentage (33.1 %) of double-counted world articles, thus impacting qualitative data as citations, impact and impact relative to word. The countries were divided into three groups, according to their individual contribution to the world publications: Group I (24 countries, at least 1 %) representing 83.9 % of the total double-counted world articles. Group II (40 countries, 0.1-0.99 % each). Group III, 153 countries (70.5 %) with <0.1 % and altogether 1.9 % of the world. Qualitative characteristics of each group were also analyzed: percentage of the country's GNP applied in R&D, proportion of Scientists and Engineers per million inhabitants and Human Development Index. Average international collaboration were: Group I, 43.0 %; Group II, 55.8 % and Group III, 85.2 %. We concluded that very high and unbalanced international collaboration, as presented by many countries, misrepresent the importance of their scientific production, technological and social outputs. Furthermore, it jeopardizes qualitative outputs of the countries themselves, artificially increasing their scientific impact, affecting all fields and therefore, the whole world. The data confirm that when dealing with the qualitative contribution of countries, it is necessary to take in consideration the level of international cooperation because, as seen here, it can and in fact it does create false impression of the real contribution of countries.
authors.affiliation: Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação em Ciências: Química da Vida e Saúde (PPGQVS), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - UFRGS and Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE - RS), Porto Alegre, RS Brazil.
authors.forename: Sonia R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Zanotto
authors.affiliation: Biblioteca do Instituto de Educação e Pesquisa (IEP), Hospital Moinhos de Vento, Porto Alegre, RS Brazil.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Haeffner
authors.affiliation: Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre and Centro de Biotecnologia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - UFRGS, Av. Bento Gonçalves, 9500, C.P. 15005, CEP 91501-970 Porto Alegre, RS Brazil.
authors.forename: Jorge A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Guimarães
keywords: Bibliometric analysis; Double-counting of articles; Impact; International collaboration; Scientific production