Research performance of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in 1385 (April 2006- March 2007)

Background: one of the frequently used measures of research performance of a country or a university is counting therelated scientific production. in the present study the number of scientific production including research projects, books,journal articles and conference proceedings published under the name of isfahan university of medical sciences wereidentified and then compared with those reported by iranian ministry of health and medical education for the year1384. the purpose of this study was to identify one-year research performance of isfahan university of medicalsciences and to show the growth rate of scientific production of this university from 1384 to 1385.methods: the present cross-sectional study was carried out by reviewing related official documents and runningadvanced searches in some of the most important databases. the time limitation was set on 1385 hijri shamsi, which isequal to the beginning of april 2006 till the end of march 2007.results: during the period of the study, isfahan university of medical sciences published 56 books. the total numberof approved research projects was 1080, most of which (61.67%) were descriptive studies. a total of 721 journalarticles published by the university researchers of which 146 papers were indexed by lsi, 26 papers were indexed bymedline, 194 papers were indexed by embase, scopus, biological abstracts, chemical abstracts and cinahl,318 articles were indexed by other databases. only 37 articles published via non-indexed journals. 74.2% of the articlesappeared in domestic journals while only 25.8% published in foreign journals. the total number of national andinternational conference proceedings was 726. the findings showed a significant increase (nearly 100%) in all kinds ofscientific productions compared to those published in 1384 except the published books.conclutions: the present study indicates that despite suffering from limitations in annual research budgets andfacilities, research performance of isfahan university of medical sciences has increased appreciably during the lastyear.