Growth rates of modern science: A bibliometric analysis based on the number of publications and cited references

摘要

Many studies in information science have looked at the growth of science. Inthis study, we re-examine the question of the growth of science. To do this we(i) use current data up to publication year 2012 and (ii) analyse it across alldisciplines and also separately for the natural sciences and for the medicaland health sciences. Furthermore, the data are analysed with an advancedstatistical technique - segmented regression analysis - which can identifyspecific segments with similar growth rates in the history of science. Thestudy is based on two different sets of bibliometric data: (1) The number ofpublications held as source items in the Web of Science (WoS, Thomson Reuters)per publication year and (2) the number of cited references in the publicationsof the source items per cited reference year. We have looked at the rate atwhich science has grown since the mid-1600s. In our analysis of citedreferences we identified three growth phases in the development of science,which each led to growth rates tripling in comparison with the previous phase:from less than 1% up to the middle of the 18th century, to 2 to 3% up to theperiod between the two world wars and 8 to 9% to 2012.