02917nas a2200217   4500000000100000008004100001653002300042653001300065653003200078653002200110100001300132700001500145700001300160700001700173245015400190856009000344300000900434490000600443520223600449022001402685       2009                            d10aStrategic planning10aResearch10aNeglected Tropical Diseases10aCapacity building1 aMorel CM1 aSerruya SJ1 aPenna GO1 aGuimarães R00aCo-authorship network analysis: a powerful tool for strategic planning of research, development and capacity building programs on neglected diseases.  uhttp://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article/asset?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pntd.0000501.PDF  ae5010 v33 a<p><strong>BACKGROUND: </strong>New approaches and tools were needed to support the strategic planning, implementation and management of a Program launched by the Brazilian Government to fund research, development and capacity building on neglected tropical diseases with strong focus on the North, Northeast and Center-West regions of the country where these diseases are prevalent.</p>

<p><strong>METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: </strong>Based on demographic, epidemiological and burden of disease data, seven diseases were selected by the Ministry of Health as targets of the initiative. Publications on these diseases by Brazilian researchers were retrieved from international databases, analyzed and processed with text-mining tools in order to standardize author- and institution's names and addresses. Co-authorship networks based on these publications were assembled, visualized and analyzed with social network analysis software packages. Network visualization and analysis generated new information, allowing better design and strategic planning of the Program, enabling decision makers to characterize network components by area of work, identify institutions as well as authors playing major roles as central hubs or located at critical network cut-points and readily detect authors or institutions participating in large international scientific collaborating networks.</p>

<p><strong>CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: </strong>Traditional criteria used to monitor and evaluate research proposals or R&amp;D Programs, such as researchers' productivity and impact factor of scientific publications, are of limited value when addressing research areas of low productivity or involving institutions from endemic regions where human resources are limited. Network analysis was found to generate new and valuable information relevant to the strategic planning, implementation and monitoring of the Program. It afforded a more proactive role of the funding agencies in relation to public health and equity goals, to scientific capacity building objectives and a more consistent engagement of institutions and authors from endemic regions based on innovative criteria and parameters anchored on objective scientific data.</p>
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