Where do the authors of influential biological and biomedical research papers tend to get their financial support? A look at the "Hot Papers" noted by The Scientist during the past year can be revealing in this respect.
In the last issue, The Scientist reported on the institutions and nations that produced the high-impact biological and biomedical articles featured in the "Hot Papers" column over the past 12 months (The Scientist, July 23, 1990, page 18). The 81 papers surveyed were selected from bimonthly reports generated by the Institute for Scientific Information in Philadelphia. To be selected as a "Hot Paper," each article had to have received an unusually large number of citations within 18 months of its publication.
The next step was to identify the government agencies, private organizations, and industrial firms that supported this body of 81 influential, high-impact articles. In all, 66 of the 81 papers acknowledged a ...
