Characteristics and trends of research articles authored by researchers affiliated with institute of chemical engineering in Taiwan

This study used the bibliometric method to analyze the characteristics and trends of research articles authored by researchers affiliated with institute of chemical engineering in Taiwan based on bibliographic data indexed by Web of Science (WOS). Results based on 14,524 articles published in the period of 1973-2010 demonstrated an increasing trend in the number of articles. The two-authored articles were the largest share; however, the articles authored by five or more researchers have become the largest part since 2007. Because co-authorship is a common phenomenon, the co-authored articles were further divided by types of collaboration. The results indicate that inter-institutional collaboration replaced the intra-departmental collaboration and has become the dominant type of collaboration since 2005. The interdisciplinary articles also revealed a considerable upward tendency. In addition, over 60% of articles were produced by the top five institutes. All articles were published in 967 journals and covered 135 subjects. Polymer Science, Chemical Engineering, and Physical Chemistry were the main subjects in most of the articles. The increase in the number of subject categories by year confirms that the research scope in chemical engineering is expanding. (C) 2011 Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.