Characterization, description, and considerations for the use of funding acknowledgement data in Web of Science

📝 Abstract

Funding acknowledgements found in scientific publications have been used to study the impact of funding on research since the 1970s. However, no broad scale indexation of that paratextual element was done until 2008, when Thomson Reuters Web of Science started to add funding acknowledgement information to its bibliographic records. As this new information provides a new dimension to bibliometric data that can be systematically exploited, it is important to understand the characteristics of these data and the underlying implications for their use. This paper analyses the presence and distribution of funding acknowledgement data covered in Web of Science. Our results show that prior to 2009 funding acknowledgements coverage is extremely low and therefore not reliable. Since 2008, funding information has been collected mainly for publications indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE); more recently (2015), inclusion of funding texts for publications indexed in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) has been implemented. Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) content is not indexed for funding acknowledgement data. Moreover, English-language publications are the most reliably covered. Finally, not all types of documents are equally covered for funding information indexation and only articles and reviews show consistent coverage. The characterization of the funding acknowledgement information collected by Thomson Reuters can therefore help understand the possibilities offered by the data but also their limitations.

💡 Analysis

Funding acknowledgements found in scientific publications have been used to study the impact of funding on research since the 1970s. However, no broad scale indexation of that paratextual element was done until 2008, when Thomson Reuters Web of Science started to add funding acknowledgement information to its bibliographic records. As this new information provides a new dimension to bibliometric data that can be systematically exploited, it is important to understand the characteristics of these data and the underlying implications for their use. This paper analyses the presence and distribution of funding acknowledgement data covered in Web of Science. Our results show that prior to 2009 funding acknowledgements coverage is extremely low and therefore not reliable. Since 2008, funding information has been collected mainly for publications indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE); more recently (2015), inclusion of funding texts for publications indexed in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) has been implemented. Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) content is not indexed for funding acknowledgement data. Moreover, English-language publications are the most reliably covered. Finally, not all types of documents are equally covered for funding information indexation and only articles and reviews show consistent coverage. The characterization of the funding acknowledgement information collected by Thomson Reuters can therefore help understand the possibilities offered by the data but also their limitations.

📄 Content

Accepted for publication in Scientometrics DOI: 10.1007/s11192-016-1953-y 1

Characterization, description, and considerations for the use of funding acknowledgement data in Web of Science Adèle Paul-Hus1, Nadine Desrochers1 and Rodrigo Costas2 1 adele.paul-hus@umontreal.ca; nadine.desrochers@umontreal.ca
Université de Montréal, École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information, C.P. 6128, Succ.
Centre-Ville, H3C 3J7 Montreal, Qc, Canada
2 rcostas@cwts.leidenuniv.nl Center for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden University, P.O. box 905, 2300 AX Leiden, the Netherlands

Abstract Funding acknowledgements found in scientific publications have been used to study the impact of funding on research since the 1970s. However, no broad scale indexation of that paratextual element was done until 2008, when Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science started to add funding acknowledgement information to its bibliographic records. As this new information provides a new dimension to bibliometric data that can be systematically exploited, it is important to understand the characteristics of these data and the underlying implications for their use. This paper analyses the presence and distribution of funding acknowledgement data covered in Web of Science. Our results show that prior to 2009 funding acknowledgements coverage is extremely low and therefore not reliable. Since 2008, funding information has been collected mainly for publications indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE); more recently (2015), inclusion of funding texts for publications indexed in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) has been implemented. Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) content is not indexed for funding acknowledgement data. Moreover, English-language publications are the most reliably covered. Finally, not all types of documents are equally covered for funding information indexation and only articles and reviews show consistent coverage. The characterization of the funding acknowledgement information collected by Thomson Reuters can therefore help understand the possibilities offered by the data but also their limitations. Keywords: funding acknowledgements; Web of Science; bibliometrics

Introduction
The impact of research funding on scientific publications has been the subject of discussions and investigations by the scientometric community for decades. In 1970, Crawford and Biderman conducted an innovative analysis of sponsorship patterns for American social sciences. At the time, most discussions on the impact of research funds on social sciences were based on data of sponsor expenditures – who gave how much to whom. By changing the perspective and using the Accepted for publication in Scientometrics DOI: 10.1007/s11192-016-1953-y 2

acknowledged sources of funding from the first footnote of more than 3,400 sociology papers, the authors found an important increase of the share of papers acknowledging financial support and a considerable diversification of funding sources between 1950 and 1968. More than 40 years later, Costas and Yegros-Yegros (2013) corroborated the added value of using funding acknowledgement information to assess the output of a funding organization. In fact, the authors found that more than 50% of all publications funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) were retrieved only through the analysis of the funding acknowledgement information. Harter and Hooten (1992) investigated the funding status of a scientific publication as a possible indicator of the quality of the research. Indeed, “[o]ne may suppose that the act of funding implies an anticipation by the funding agency that the outcome of the project will be useful and that it will make a contribution to further research; to a solution of a problem; or to demonstration of a method, process, or activity” (Harter & Hooten, 1992, p. 583). The authors examined 391 papers, looking for a statement of funding in the first footnote, in the citations, and in the acknowledgement section. The study found no relationship between the funding status of a paper and the quality or the utility of that paper as measured by citations. Cronin and Shaw (1999) and Zhao (2010, based on 1998 publications) also studied the relationship between the funding status of Information Science (IS) research articles and their impact as measured by citations. In both cases, funding information was obtained looking at the acknowledgement section of papers when financial support was explicitly mentioned. In one case (Cronin & Shaw, 1999), the citedness of a publication appears to be associated with the journal of publication and an author’s nationality, but not with funding, while in the other case (Zhao, 2010) the citedness of funded research was substantially higher than that of non-funded research. In 1993, the Unit for Policy Research in Science and Medicine (PRISM) proposed to develop a biblio

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