Detection of Bibliographic Coupling Communities Using Research Output (2004-2013) from Nepal

This study explores a country-level bibliometric analysis to extract bibliographic coupling (BC) communities as clusters of documents coupled through publications in their reference lists using the BiblioTool software. The 2004-2013 research output from Nepal represented by relatively small dataset of 3,011 documents (peer reviewed articles and reviews) indexed as core collections in the Web of Science (WoS) database was used. Setting a threshold of 10 documents, twenty-five BC communities, each with 12-443 documents, which provide a comprehensive picture on the research themes characterized by diverse items (keywords, subjects, journals, institutions, countries, authors, references, and title words) were discriminated. Twelve communities (i.e., 48%) deal with medical & health sciences (maternal & child health; tropical infectious diseases; cancer & cardiovascular diseases; mountain sickness; blindness) closely linked also with social aspects; 4 communities with earth, environment and biodiversity (tectonics and natural hazards; environmental pollution, remediation and conservation; wild-life preservation); 3 communities with agriculture and veterinary sciences (pathogens of major crops (maize, wheat, rice) & crop yields, plant genes, and dairy farming); 3 communities with nanomaterials and metal-alloys; 2 communities with pharmacology including ethnomedicine, and one community of 12 documents is related to galactic observations. These new results provide wider insights on the research volume & diversity, international collaboration and the contributors (academic, national & international, governmental & non-profit agencies, etc.) engaged in research in Nepal.