A reputation enhanced in the science community

International validation and recognition is vitally important in the research world. Without it even the most significant breakthroughs can go unnoticed.

This makes the reports of organisations like SCImago eagerly awaited by research institutions around the world.

Based in Spain, SCImago publishes an annual global research institutions report which analyses the research outputs of universities and research-focused institutions, and compiles a range of indicators based on documents published in scholarly journals.

And its latest report contains particularly good news for Teagasc, which has been awarded the second highest excellence rate in Ireland for its research output, with only TCD coming in ahead of it.

Overall the organisation is ranked ninth out of 21 research institutions in Ireland, and does very well globally for an organisation of its size and resources, coming in at 1,804 out of 2,740 which make it into the report.

To feature in the report an institute must have published a minimum of 100 papers in the last year of the five-year period the report covers.

The 2013 report looks at the 2007-11 period, so an institution needed to have published at least 100 papers in 2011. Teagasc comfortably meets this criterion having produced 1,405 scholarly documents between 2007 and 2011.

“This report is very important for the credibility of what we do,” says Teagasc director of research Frank O’Mara.

“Our work has to be seen to be scientifically excellent, and this report shows that we are up with the very best in the world when it comes to the support we give the agriculture and food sectors through our research efforts.”

While Teagasc may be best known to most people as the national agricultural advisory body , a major part of its work is in scientific research in a variety of areas.

“We will never compete with the major universities for output in terms of volume but we are very significant players when it comes to agricultural and food research,” says O’Mara.

“We are engaged in research in areas such as food safety, the technology of food processing, food-product development, and the health properties of food.

“Through our work with UCC in the alimentary pharmabiotic centre we are studying the impact of nutrition on gut health, and in turn the impact of the gut on our overall health.”

In agriculture the main thrust of the research is towards increased productivity and sustainability.

“We are working to improve the productivity and, hopefully, the profitability of farmers, but in a sustainable manner; what is known as sustainable intensification.”

But quantity is fairly meaningless in the rarefied world of international scientific research. It is quality that counts, and this is measured by a number of yardsticks.

The most important of these is the impact factor of the scientific journal in which the research has been published.

The impact factor is a measure of the frequency in which the average article in a journal has been cited by other researchers in other publications in a particular year.

So, the more often articles in a publication get referenced to in other publication the higher the impact.

These high-impact journals become the most sought after by researchers looking to have articles published, and therefore can afford to pick and chose from the very best articles submitted.

This is the reason why publications like the New England Journal of Medicine, the British Medical Journal, and the New Scientist get mentioned so often in the news – they have very high impact scores and therefore get to publish the most exciting and interesting research results before anyone else.

Teagasc does very well on this score with 73 per cent of its documents appearing in journals that feature in the top quartile of their subject category.

In addition, 19 per cent of those documents are among the 10 per cent most highly cited within their field. And Teagasc is the lead author of 9 per cent of those highly cited documents.

Overall, the average impact of Teagasc’s documents is 37 per cent better than the world average for similar documents.

Another important benchmark is international collaboration and Teagasc again scores well with 41 per cent of its output featuring this attribute.

That overall impact is reflected in the fact that in the 2013 and 2012 SCImago reports the organisation placed more documents in top quartile-ranked journals than any other Irish research organisation.

“We strive to be the equal of the universities when it comes to scientific excellence and endeavour and the quality of our research,” says O’Mara.

“We did very well on the three metrics covering excellence of research and this is a great endorsement of what we are doing. This is also a great boost for our staff here who are doing tremendous work on very important research areas.”

This is also very important in terms of future international collaboration and funding.

European research funding only tends to be available for collaborative research projects, and Teagasc is aiming to increase its share of funding under the new Horizon 2020 research programme.

“It is very important, both for us and Ireland, that Teagasc and the universities and other Irish research institutions maximise the funding they get under Horizon 2020,” O’Mara says.

“And reputation is all important in the scientific community. If we want to work with the top people on collaborative research projects we have to be perceived as top class, and the SCImago report is very important to us in that regard.”