Study of national scientific journals. The Spanish case (1950-90)

Abstract

The aim of the present work was to analyse the evolution of Spanish scientific journals in the fields of experimental sciences and medicine from the viewpoint of what might be called their appeal to the national and international research community, to determine to what degree these journals are or are ceasing to be a valued or attractive channel of communication for the said researchers. To this end, we studied the changes that a sample of Spanish scientific journals have undergone over the last 40 years. The journals were: Anales de Física, Anales de Química, Estudios Geológicos, Medicina Clínica, Revista Española de Fisiología and Revista Íberoamericana de Matemáticas. They cover all the traditional academic fields except Biology, and were considered to be the most representative of their respective specialities. The aspects analysed were: productive capacity, affiliation, and the authors’ national origins. We considered these to be particularly sensitive to the image and appeal of the journals for their respective communities: changes in these aspects would reflect the role and importance that researchers attribute to the journal. Three tri-annual sequences were studied from the decades of the 50’s, 70’s, and 90’s. The results show: a process of rise and fall of the productive capacity; a successive leadership, in terms of number of articles, with affiliations first in the CSIC (the Government Research Council) and later in the Universities; and lastly a growing presence of foreign authors, especially from Europe and Latin America which partially compensates the reduction in Spanish authors. Some possible causes of these changes are indicated. The issue of the survival of these journals is discussed in the Conclusions.