The Catalan Institute of Oncology is ranked among the world’s best research centres

Barcelona (ACN).- The Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) is one of the best research centres in Europe, as stated in the last world report from the SCImago Institutions Ranking, known as one of the most exhaustive classifications of research institutions in the world. The report analysed the activity of more than 3.000 institutions between 2005 and 2009 and focuses on the rate at which their scientific documents are published. In a ranking where the United States monopolises most of the top positions, the ICO excels in the quality of its publications. Harvard University tops the ranking, but the Catalan centre, is ranked second in Spain and among the best European institutions. Catalonia, and in particular Barcelona is consolidating its position as a reference cluster for biomedical science.

The results of the SCImago Institutions Ranking World Report 2011 show that during the period between 2005-2009, the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) published 953 scientific articles, a small amount when compared to the largest scientific institutions across the world. However 70% of those 953 articles were published in the most influential journals in the field, reflecting Catalonia's increasing importance in biomedical research.

The report bases its classification in two main indicators. The first refers to the normalised ratio, that is to say the relationship between the average impact of a scientific institution and the average world impact of the publications in the same scientific discipline. The ICO’s index is 2.7, a number that beats most of the other international significant institutions index’s. This is the case, for example, of Harvard University, which is considered the ranking’s number one. Harvard, despite having published an impressive amount of articles, has an impact of 2.4.

The other indicator is the excellence rate, the institution’s ability for producing first level articles in their disciplines. This information is the result of analyzing which percentage of an institution’s publications is included in 10% of the most quoted articles in the discipline around the world. The Catalan Institute of Oncology reaches 37.6% of works that belong to this 10% of most mentioned articles, which matches the excellence rates of the best world medical research centres.