Analysis of research activity in the field Engineering, Civil through bibliometric methods

The present study analyzes the evolution of research activity carried out in the field of civil engineering. With this end in mind, all of the articles published in the category Engineering, Civil from the Web of Science from 1997 to 2011 have been analyzed using bibliometric methods. For each paper (107,623 papers, 96.2% in English) quantitative and qualitative parameters (number of weighted papers, impact factor, number of citations, h-index, international collaborations, number of authors, and research centers) were analyzed. With these indicators, rankings of the outstanding countries and research centers have been established including an analysis of evolution in said rankings over the years. The study is complemented by an analysis of the main research topics (through keywords) and by an analysis of the journals in the category. The results show great growth in research activity the number of articles and average impact factor has tripled since 1997. Eighty-seven percent of scientific production takes place in thirty countries. The countries of the GS stand out especially (except for Russia). The USA is the country with the highest production level (at 27% of the total and with 39 of the 100 most productive research centers). The spectacular increase in production and impact of China threatens the future domination of the USA. The increase in collaboration at all levels demonstrates greater complexity and structure of research. In the research carried out, more than 134,000 different keywords have been identified, although only 1% appear in more than 100 articles. The rapid increase in the use of certain keywords and the decrease of others allows us to identify changes in research topics. In the majority of journals, there exists a clear relationship between impact factor and the level of internationalization and diffusion of said journals. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.