Spain

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Profile

Spain appears in this library as a group of institutions whose researchers contributed to the papers collected here. The country listing includes a body only when its scientists wrote more than one paper in our library, so it describes the Spanish institutions with a repeated presence in the collection rather than Spanish science as a whole. Most entries are universities, alongside a nonprofit research foundation and a research institute, spread across many cities. The Spanish listing is one view within the library's wider directory of research organisations of all kinds.

The institutions are ordered by the cited research their scientists carried out while affiliated with them. This order is not the same as ranking by total citations or by the number of papers. Some institutions with a modest number of works rank above others with more, and the most heavily cited are not always first. The list therefore shows both how much each institution contributed and how that work was received by later research.

The institutions at the top of the list

The first entry is the University of the Basque Country, based in Leioa. On this site it combines a large number of works with a strong citation record, and no other Spanish institution in the collection matches it on both measures. Its place at the top reflects a body of cited work spread over many papers rather than a single highly cited contribution.

Second is Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. Among the Spanish institutions here it has one of the larger sets of works. Its citation total is lower than those of some institutions ranked below it, so its position comes from steady, broad output rather than from the highest citation counts.

Third is Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, also in Barcelona. Its works here have received more citations in total than those of any other Spanish institution on the list. Its rank shows that the ordering weighs more than raw citations, but it is clearly one of the most cited bodies of Spanish research in the library.

Next come two universities in the east of the country: Universitat Politècnica de València in Valencia and the University of Alicante in Alicante. Both have a solid set of works in our library. The Valencia institution has the stronger citation record of the two, while the Alicante university has a slightly larger number of papers but fewer citations. Together they form a second group below the three leaders.

The middle of the list

Universitat de Barcelona follows, with a smaller number of works that are fairly well cited. After it comes the Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, a Barcelona-based nonprofit and the only nonprofit among the Spanish entries. Its presence shows that Spanish research on this site is not produced only by universities, though only a few works are credited to the foundation itself.

The Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia in Madrid comes next. It has very few works here, but their citation record places it ahead of several institutions with more.

The most striking case in the middle of the list is Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, located in Cerdanyola del Vallès. It has very few works in our library, yet they have been cited heavily, ranking just behind the leading three on citations alone. This points to one or a very small number of widely used contributions rather than a broad output. The gap between its citation total and its rank is the clearest sign that the ordering is not based on citations alone.

The rest of the list

Further down is the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela in Santiago de Compostela, with a handful of moderately cited works. It is followed by the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, whose few works here have so far received little citation.

The Barcelona Supercomputing Center is the only entry described as a research institute. It has a fair number of works in our library, more than several universities ranked above it, but they have so far drawn few citations. This may simply mean its papers are recent or serve a specialised readership. The listing itself does not say which.

The Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona and the Universidad de Granada in Granada come next. Both have small sets of works, with Granada's somewhat better cited. Then comes the Universitat de València, whose small output has gained more citations than several institutions ranked above it.

Near the end is the Universidade da Coruña in A Coruña. It contributes a fairly large number of works by the standards of the lower part of the list, but with modest citations, a pattern similar to the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. The University of Castilla-La Mancha in Ciudad Real closes the list, with a few works that have received very little citation so far.

Geography

The listing shows a marked concentration in Barcelona. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Universitat de Barcelona, the Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center are all based in the city. Add Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in Cerdanyola del Vallès and Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, and a large share of the Spanish institutions on this site, and much of their cited work, comes from a small number of nearby places.

Valencia is a second centre, with both Universitat Politècnica de València and Universitat de València. The University of Alicante adds a further eastern presence.

Madrid has two entries, the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Each has a small number of works here, so on this site the capital plays a smaller part than Barcelona or Valencia.

The north-west is represented by Galicia's two cities on the list, Santiago de Compostela and A Coruña. The University of the Basque Country in Leioa gives the north its most cited body of work among the Spanish institutions here. In the south, Granada is the only city listed, and the centre of the country is represented by Ciudad Real through the University of Castilla-La Mancha.

Kinds of institution

Universities dominate the Spanish entries. They cover several types: general universities such as Universitat de Barcelona and the Universidad de Granada, technical universities such as the two polytechnics in Barcelona and Valencia, and a distance-learning university in the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia. The two polytechnics rank high, especially Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. This suggests that engineering and technical research makes up a visible part of Spain's presence in the library, although the listing does not describe research fields directly.

The two non-university entries differ in nature. The Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats is a nonprofit, and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center is a research institute. Both are in Barcelona, which adds to the city's weight in the listing. Their different citation records show that institutions of a similar kind can have quite different profiles on this site.

Patterns of output and citation

Taken together, the Spanish entries show several distinct patterns. One group pairs many works with many citations; the University of the Basque Country and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya are the clearest examples. A second pattern is a small output with a very high citation record, seen most strongly at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and to a lesser extent at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia and Universitat de València. A third pattern is a relatively large output with few citations so far, seen at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and the Universidade da Coruña.

These patterns show why the ranking weighs more than one measure. An institution with a single widely cited paper and one with many lightly cited papers each say something different about Spanish research in the collection, and the order tries to balance the two. Readers comparing institutions should look at both the size of each body of work and how it has been taken up, rather than relying on position alone.

Scope

Everything in this overview describes Spanish institutions only as far as their researchers appear in the papers held in this library. Institutions with a single paper here are not listed, and Spanish research outside the collection is not covered. As the library grows, the set of institutions, their order and the balance between cities and types of institution may change. The individual institution pages linked above give a closer view of each one's works, people and topics on this site.