Bibliometric Profiling Analysis

Tender description

The MRC is interested in developing its approach to the tracking of benefits from its intramural programme. To assist with this, the MRC requires some additional bibliometric analysis, and advice/assistance on ways to visualise and compare the fields of research studied in different research organisations. There is additional interest in this analysis given that the MRC has transferred a large number of its units and its largest institute into new governance arrangements, involving expenditure of £100m per year and the transfer of over 1,500 researchers to new employers. The quinquennial review (QQR) of MRC units and institutes provide the most important route for assessing the benefit of this mode of support, and recent changes to governance, given that it will include expert, international peer review, but we expect that between QQRs there will also be an occasional need to report and review, especially on the wider economic benefits and effects of interaction with UK Universities. This specification relates to the analysis of publication data from the output of a sample of MRC’s intramural programme in the five years leading up to 2015. A custom bibliometrics analysis is required for this set of research publications, plus the compilation and analysis of a set of comparator research organisations. The supplied MRC intramural publication dataset will be approximately 2,000 records. These records will be provided by the MRC. The publication output of the comparator organisations is to be sourced by the supplier. For the 14 comparator organisations experience has shown that a five year publication record is likely to include approximately 70,000 records. Analysis of this publication output is required to include citation impact, collaboration, productivity (papers per £ invested), and field of research/subject area analysis, at an institution/organisation level. Data on the expenditure in comparator research organisations will have to be sourced by the supplier (from annual reports etc.). • Publication data for the subset of the MRC intramural programme will be provided by MRC using data submitted in Researchfish at the start of 2015, or extracted from annual reports. • The publication data will include PubMed ID and be provided as a single MS Excel file. • All primary peer reviewed publications/articles and reviews (not to include letters and conference proceedings) will be included in the analysis. • 5 years of publications – 2009 to 2013 (2010-2014 if citation data can be obtained to the end of 2015) • Citation data will include citations up to the end of 2014 (2015 if available in the timescale) • The supplier will extract the data for the comparator organisations using their usual process which is based on addresses and all suitable variations of the addresses. • Data on the expenditure in comparator research organisations will have to be sourced by the supplier (from annual reports etc.)