Bibliometric Characteristics and Citation Impact of Funded Research: A Case Study of Tribology

The purpose of this study is to compare the bibliometric characteristics between funded and non-funded publications in the field of tribology. The Science Citation Index – Expanded (SCI-E) is used to retrieve the bibliographic records related to the tribology research. Bibliometric indicators such as number of publications, number of citations, funded ratio, and average number of authors, author keywords, and references are employed. A new relative indicator called Relative Funding Index is introduced in this study. The results of this study show that more than 55% of tribology research publications were funded and number of funded publications has increased dramatically. Funded research publications have higher number of cited references and international collaborative papers than non-funded ones. However, the share of single authored publications is lower than non-funded ones. There is no difference in citation impact between funded and non-funded research.