The Analysis of Trends in Antarctic Regional Research

Abstract

This study seeks to analyze research activities focusing on Antarctica through a bibliographic study and to induce relevant implications. This study is based on 78,445 articles which have been retrieved from the Web of Science database and were published over the period 1998-2015. Through a quantitative analysis and a Social Network Analysis (SNA), this study has uncovered several findings and explained their implications. First, many countries, in general, have increased their research on Antarctica. In particular, many countries have increased multi-national research cooperation in order to enhance research productivity. Second, the United States showed the highest degree of centrality for all four of the indexes given by SNA. Third, within the total number of research articles on Antarctica published recently, the percentage of articles published by research institutions in the United States has gradually decreased, while the number of articles published by research institutions in other countries such as China, Turkey, Brazil, South Korea, and Chile has been on the rise.were published over the period 1998-2015. Through a quantitative analysis and a Social Network Analysis (SNA), this study has uncovered several findings and explained their implications. First, many countries, in general, have increased their research on Antarctica. In particular, many countries have increased multi-national research cooperation in order to enhance research productivity. Second, the United States showed the highest degree of centrality for all four of the indexes given by SNA. Third, within the total number of research articles on Antarctica published recently, the percentage of articles published by research institutions in the United States has gradually decreased, while the number of articles published by research institutions in other countries such as China, Turkey, Brazil, South Korea, and Chile has been on the rise.