Evaluation of the Scientific Output in One of the Major Medical Universities of Iran

In scientometric evaluations, the basic criteria for determining the scientific ranking of a country among others is the amount of participation in science production, creativity in technology, and its role in the world science production.. In this study, the trend of science production in Shiraz University of Medical Sciences during 1959-2011 was evaluated by employing scientometric techniques in Scopus database.. All the documents indexed in Scopus database by researchers of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences during 1959-2011 were extracted.. A higher frequency of the published documents was seen in 2011 with 751 published works (16.39%). Moreover, the first indexed article was “Glutathione stability of the erythrocytes in Iranians” and the Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences was the core journal for publishing 259 of all the indexed documents and 99% of the documents were published in English Language.. In this study, review of researches showed an increasing trend in scientific output during 1959-1978, but after the revolution and by initiating the Iran-Iraq war, a downward trend was seen. By the end of the war, a rapid growth was observed in scientific production. Establishment of research centers in different faculties of the university, increase in the number of master and doctorate degree students, and improvement of research budgets seem to be the important factors that this have affected growth trend..