Scientific concentration and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean at the beginning of the 21st century: A scientometric study

Abstract

Latin America and the Caribbean is a wide, diverse and unequal region, even in science and technology. This article analyzes the concentration of scientific inputs and outputs and discusses aspects of inequality in regional science. This is a scientometrics study based on input data and scientific production of the region indexed in the Web of Science and in SciELO Citation Index. Results show that the distribution of science is quite irregular among the different fields and countries, with few nations concentrating most of the investments, human resources, journals, articles and citations. The study concludes that regional science is marked by acute inequality, led by few countries and characterized by low regional integration