Dr. Michiel Kolman, SVP of Global Academic Relations at Elsevier, gave this presentation as part of a panel at the 26 General Meeting of TWAS, the World Academy of Sciences, hosted by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Read more on Elsevier Connect: http://elsevier.com/connect

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Dr. Michiel Kolman, Senior Vice President,
Global Academic Relations
Food Security: an information
provider’s view
November 21, 2015

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Outline
Food Security: a view based on bibliometrics (publications & citations)
• To set the stage: sustainability research report
• Zoom in on ‘dignity’ and agriculture
• Elsevier: how do we support the community
- Food Security community (journals & conferences)
- Global South: Elsevier Foundation & Research4Life
• Punch Line: Food Security or Sustainability Research:
- Growing Fast
- High Quality

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6 Themes of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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Sustainability Science in a Global Landscape
Key Findings:

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Research Output by UN Sustainability Theme

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Research Impact by UN Sustainability Theme
FWCI: Field Weighted Citation Impact, a proxy for quality

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Sustainability Science Subject Areas
Food Science
Environment
Health

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Interdisciplinary Sustainability Research – key phrases:
Food Security closely linked with Water issues
Food Security
Health
Environment
Climate

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Dignity: UN Sustainable Development Goals & Top
Contributors (2009-2013)

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Food Science: A Key Element of Dignity
“Dignity includes goals to end poverty and
fight inequality. In 2003, two-thirds of the
population in Sub-Saharan Africa lived in
rural areas, and 90% of these people
depended on agriculture to make a living.
Across Sub-Saharan Africa, one potential
approach to alleviating poverty is therefore
in agriculture: improvements in this area
have the potential to improve food
security and lift local smallholders out of
poverty.”
- An excerpt from Sustainability Science in
a Global Landscape

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Sustainability Report: Dignity Key Findings – Top 50
Most Frequent Words in Dignity-Themed Publications

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In 2012, Elsevier launched the journal Global Food Security,
and has established a conference by the same name.
• Global Food Security (both the journal and conference) bridges the
gap between various disciplines, such as agricultural sciences,
social sciences, medicine and environmental sciences.
• Combining the journal with a conference of the same name
establishes a platform where scientists and policy makers, working
in various disciplines, meet and work together to achieve global food
security.
• These initiatives have proven to be an invaluable source of
information regarding Global Food Security for researchers,
lecturers, teachers, students, professionals, policy makers and
the international media.
Food Security Developments at Elsevier

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About the Journal Global Food Security
The journal was launched in December 2012 with a
Special Issue on the Somalia Famine and a second
issue of invited review papers.
Global Food Security editors focus on 4 themes,
overseen by Editor-in-Chief Derek Byerlee:
• Food supply and production (Achim Dobermann),
• Economics, access, and policy (Kei Otsuka )
• Nutrition, health and food safety (Jess Fanzo)
• Environment, natural resources, and climate change
(Saul Cunningham)
• Lifestock/Fish (Steve Staal)
101 Articles published (96 invited review articles, 5 editorials) with 194,158
ScienceDirect Downloads and 421 Citations (Scopus)in total.
(updated Sep.2015)
Included in SCIE (T.R. ISI web of Sciences), will have first Impact Factor in
2016 Summer

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Africa
17%
Asia
7%
Australasia
9%
Central
America/Caribbean
2%
Europe
47%
Middle East
1%
North America
16%
South America
1%
About the 2013 Global Food Security Conference
• Dates: 29 September – 2 October 2013
• Venue: Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands
• Abstract submissions : 926
• Delegates: 584 from 60+ countries
• Geographical Breakdown:

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About the 2015 Global Food Security Conference
2nd Conference: 2015
• Dates: 11 October – 14 October 2015
• Venue: Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
• Abstract submissions : 1418
• Delegates: 600+ from 60+ countries(including a BBC Journalist)
• Junior Researcher Task Force -22 competitively selected early
career researchers and professionals from around the world will be
responsible for distilling via social media the main messages coming
out of the presentations and resulting discussions under
each thematic area of the conference on a real time base. After the
conference, their written summaries can be found on the Economics
That Really Matters blog, and some via Elsevier’s social media
accounts.

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Elsevier’s other journals in the Food Security Journal Portfolio

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Research4Life, AGORA and Elsevier
Research4Life is a public private access
partnership with the FAO, WHO, UNEP
and WIPO.
Elsevier is a founding and driving
partner, providing 25% of the content
overall with ScienceDirect and Scopus.
AGORA is the food security arm of
Research4Life, founded with FAO and
Cornell in 2003.
AGORA offers:
12,000 agricultural books and journals
from over 200 publishers to 3,000
registered agricultural institutions.

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How Research4Life Impacts an Agronomists Work
Dr Sami Hyacinthe
Kambire, a researcher
from Burkina Faso, shares
how AGORA has helped
him to develop better and
more informed scientific
writing skills, produce
focused research,
compete more effectively
for research funding, and
deliver better teaching
programs.

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The Elsevier Foundation:
Recent agricultural research capacity building grants…
20
20
2008-2018 Librarians without Borders
$400,000 to support the development of a solid
training infrastructure behind Research4Life,
including AGORA.
2013-5 Author Capacity Building in Agricultural
$87,000 Grant to Cornell University and the
Information Training and Outreach Center in Africa to
train (ITOCA) to offer critical authorship skills in
Malawi, Ethiopia and Nigeria.
2014-2016: Digitization of Indigenous Knowledge
(Forig Library) grant to the CSIR Forestry Research
Institute of Ghana to establish a library system for
recording, documenting and preserving indigenous
knowledge on forest foods and medicinal plants.

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Global Research Trends in Food
Science

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“Food Security” Global Publication & Impact Map,
2010 – 2014

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Food Security Research Area: Key Findings
Scholarly Output, 2010 – 2014
7,293 publications
Field-Weighted Citation Impact, 2010 – 2014
1.37
Authors, 2010 – 2014
22,166 researchers
Outputs in Top Percentiles, 2010 – 2014
15.2% of Publications in top 10% most cited
worldwide

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Food Security Scholarly Output Growth: Output nearly
doubled over 5-year period
CAGR: 16.17%

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Food Security Research Impact: Growth over time with
some year-to-year decline, but above world average
World Average: 1.0

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“Food Security” Top 10 Countries, 2010 – 2014: 3
United States producing most, but highest growth rates from
Germany, China, and Canada, while Netherlands has highest Impact
Country/Territory Publications Publication CAGR FWCI
United States 2,009 14.6% 1.99
United Kingdom 962 11.8% 2.73
China 843 23.7% 1.29
Australia 619 11.8% 2.13
Canada 536 16.9% 1.82
India 528 9.2% 1.22
Germany 387 29.1% 2.39
South Africa 382 15.4% 1.09
Italy 349 13.8% 1.93
Netherlands 311 13.2% 3.35

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“Food Security” Top 10 Institutions/Org.s, 2010 – 2014 2
High representation from US & China
Affiliated Inst. /Org. Country Publications FWCI
Wageningen U. and Res. Center Netherlands 162 3.26
U.S. Department of Agriculture United States 121 2.95
Food and Agri. Org. of the UN Italy (UN) 115 1.91
Chinese Academy of Sciences China 95 1.37
Int’ Food Policy Research Inst. United States 83 2.24
China Agricultural University China 81 2.27
Cornell University United States 77 2.81
CSIRO Australia 76 4.74
McGill University Canada 75 2.03
Chinese Acad. of Agr. Sciences China 69 2.02

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“Food Security” Top 10 Producing Authors, 2010 – 2014: 3
China in the lead, many from North America
Author Institution Country Publications FWCI h-Index
Zhang, Fusuo
China Agricultural
University
China 19 3.49 54
Tang, Huajun
Chinese Academy of
Agricultural Sciences
China 16 1.31 15
Lal, Rattan The Ohio State University United States 15 3.69 67
Sharkey, Joseph R. Texas A and M University United States 15 1.55 23
Thornton, Philip K.
International Livestock
Research Institute
Kenya 15 7.87 29
Ford, James David McGill University Canada 14 1.29 25
Hanjra, Munir A. Charles Sturt University Australia 14 2.14 52
Nord, Mark
U.S. Department of
Agriculture
United States 14 0.49 14
Cassman, Kenneth G. University of Nebraska United States 13 7.41 51
Dean, Wesley R. Texas A and M University United States 13 1.59 13

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Food Security Publications by Journal Subject Area:
Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Environmental Science, and
Social Sciences Represent over half of Food Security Publications

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Benchmarking Food Security Research Output among
BRICS nations: China leading the way, little from Russia
CAGR: 24.97%
CAGR: 12.17%
CAGR: 23.17%
CAGR: 29.95%
CAGR: 25.74%

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Benchmarking Food Security Research Impact among
BRICS nations and Global Output
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Field-WeightedCitationImpact
World Brazil China India South Africa

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Brazil’s Top Key Phrases unique from Food Security’s
Top Key Phrases: Societal Aspects 4

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China’s Top Key Phrases unique from Food Security’s
Top Key Phrases: land & people 3
Note: “China” is excluded from this cloud because it is the 22nd most common key phrase in Food Security research

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India’s Top Key Phrases unique from Food Security’s
Top Key Phrases: emphasis on agriculture 3

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China’s Food Security Publication Map, 2010 – 2014

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China’s Top Food Security Research Producers 1
Institution
Scholarly
Output
Views
Count
FWCI
Chinese Academy of Sciences* 95 44877 1.37
China Agricultural University 81 54367 2.27
Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences 69 57161 2.02
Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research
Chinese Academy of Sciences*
65 76989 1.86
Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University 40 39063 0.93
Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute 38 26016 1.54
Beijing Normal University 35 16153 1.23
Nanjing Agricultural University 33 28892 2.03
Zhejiang University 31 14357 1.35

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China’s Top International Collaborators in Food Security 4
Institution Country
Scholarly
Output
Views
Count
FWCI
Wageningen University and Research
Center
Netherlands 18 18174 4.21
International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis, Laxenburg
Austria 13 7938 3.04
U.S. Department of Agriculture United States 12 12205 4.61
University of Tokyo Japan 12 5988 1.72
International Food Policy Research
Institute
United States 11 6079 1.99
University of California at Davis United States 9 4176 8.44
Purdue University United States 8 36785 1.28
CSIRO Australia 7 6182 8.11
World Agroforestry Centre Kenya 7 3859 5.01
AgriFood Canada Canada 6 3034 2.98

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Summary
Sustainability Science:
• Growing fast (8%)
• Good quality (30% above world average)
• Very international and interdisciplinary
Food Security:
• Growing very fast (16%)
• High quality (37% above world average)
• Top 10
- Countries: US largest, Germany highest growth, Netherlands highest
impact
- Institutes: Wageningen U. largest, CSIRO highest impact
- Authors: China & US most productive, Kenya highest impact
- THANK YOU -