Fiocruz wins in three categories of 2022 Capes-Elsevier Awards

The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation was one of the winners of the sixth edition of the 2022 Capes-Elsevier Awards, announced Tuesday night, November 29, in Brasilia. The award recognized 13 learning and research institutions for their national contribution and production. Fiocruz won in three categories: Science production cited in public policies; Contribution to COVID-19 research; and Impact of international collaboration. Representing Fiocruz president, Nísia Trindade Lima, the vice-president of Education, Information and Communication, Cristiani Vieira Machado, attended the ceremony and stated that “This award is, without a doubt, the result of the collective work of the thousands of Fiocruz employees from its units all over the country”.

Machado emphasized that the award is significant as it acknowledges the institute’s commitment to working in a cooperative fashion and increasing the presence of Brazilian science in the global scenario; it gives answers to society in situations of instability or crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic; and it produces relevant knowledge to strengthen the SUS and health as a right for everyone.

The selection criteria for the 2022 Capes-Elsevier Awards

The winners were selected based on indicators of scientific production extracted from Elsevier’s SciVal tool, which offers quick and easy access to the results of research from more than 20,000 institutions from 230 countries around the globe. The methodology comprised different combinations of indicators for each category, from 2017 to 2021, and was guided by the Research Metrics Guide Book. The goal was also to use indicators weighed by discipline, to ensure a more balanced evaluation.

The analysis considered institutions with more than two thousand published papers in the period (2017-2021). In addition, the evaluation also considered the percentage in the selected indicator, instead of the absolute figure. The exception to this rule was the category “Contribution to COVID-19 research”, for which the total amount of citations was used as one of the selection criteria.

The indicators used for each of the categories for which Fiocruz was awarded:

Impact of international collaboration
Indicator: Percentage of papers written in international collaboration and impact of the international collaboration (number of citations for the papers in international collaboration).

Contribution to COVID-19 research
Indicator: Number of papers related to COVID-19 and Fiel-Weighted Citation Impact of these papers.

Science production cited in public policies
Indicator: Percentage of papers cited in any local public policy, either national or international.

Capes

The Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Capes) is a Foundation, bound to the Ministry of Education, which is responsible for the stricto sensu (master’s and doctorate’s degrees) graduate programs system in Brazil. It promotes, assesses and regulates graduate programs in the country, establishing criteria that guide the learning and research institutions in the search for a standard of excellence. The Foundation’s policies are always determined after broad consultation with the academy by means of collective boards and evaluation commissions, comprised of qualified researchers appointed by the graduate programs and science associations. The Coordination has the Capes Journals Portal, one of the world’s largest science virtual archives, gathering and offering high-quality scientific knowledge, with subscriptions to international publishers and science societies for Professors, researchers, employees and students of the participating institutions.

It contains more than 40,000 titles with full text, 74 reference databases, 10 databases exclusively for patents, and more than 280,000 electronic documents, in addition to technical standards, encyclopedias, statistics and audiovisual content. The Portal also offers selected free content, such as free-access databases, national journals with high Qualis-Capes rankings, and summaries of thesis and dissertations defended in the country since 1987.

Elsevier

As a global leader in information and analyses, Elsevier helps researchers and healthcare professionals make progress in science and improve health results, for the benefit of society. This is accomplished by facilitating insights and critical decision-making for clients in all global research and health ecosystems. Everything published by Elsevier maintains the highest standards of quality and integrity, and this same rigor is applied to information analysis solutions for researchers, healthcare professionals, institutions, and sponsors.

Elsevier has been supporting the work of health and research partners for over 140 years. It has grown based on its own roots in the publishing field, offering valuable knowledge and analysis that help users advance and boost social progress. Digital solutions such as ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, ClinicalKey and Sherpath support research strategic management, R&D performance, support to clinical decisions, and health education. Researchers and healthcare professionals can count on more than 2,700 digitalized journals, including The Lancet and Cell. There are more than 43,000 e-books, plus iconic reference texts.

* With information from Dedicata Advisory & Contents