Analysis of scientific production and research specialization of the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia. Scopus (2003-2008)

This study analyzes the scientific output and research specialization at the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia (UPV) as collected by the SCOPUS database during 2003-2010. The 11,126 documents published represent 23% of the regional production and 2.8% of Spanish production. The analysis of the evolution of subject specialization shows that more than half of the production is based on Engineering, Computer Science, Chemistry and Mathematics, as the main areas. A third of the works were published as conference papers. Furthermore 95% of the papers were published in English and received more than 99% of the overall citations. The comparison with other national polytechnics shows that the UPV is second only to the Univ. of Politecnica de Cataluna in production and citation. It maintains a dominant position in Agriculture, Biology, Chemistry, Decision Sciences, Social Sciences and Chemistry. Although its main specialties are technical, the other less technical fields are more representative with a higher visibility, thereby confirming its distinctive profile. Finally, the impact analysis shows that the decrease in expected visibility corresponds to an increasing number of papers published in journals of the third and fourth quartiles. Despite this decline, the UPV has a higher citation rate than that of the other Spanish polytechnic universities.