Fields of Science (FoS) Analysis#
This list represents the distribution of publications across various scientific disciplines. Topics are produced from OpenAlex topic taxonomy and represent fine and coarse grain topics. A publication can have more than one topic.
Here is a brief summary of the top-level topics (e.g. OpenAlex “fields”):
Dominance of Physical Sciences and Engineering: Physics & Astronomy, Materials Science, and Engineering are the top three, each representing nearly 30% of the publications. This suggests a strong focus on these fundamental and applied scientific areas.
Significant Biological and Chemical Presence: Biochemistry, Genetics & Molecular Biology, and Chemistry also have a substantial representation, highlighting the importance of these fields.
Interdisciplinary Nature: The presence of fields like Environmental Science, Energy, and Chemical Engineering, alongside core disciplines, points to a degree of interdisciplinary research.
Long Tail of Disciplines: While the top fields account for a large proportion, there’s a long tail of numerous other disciplines, each contributing a smaller percentage. This indicates breadth, even if some areas have relatively fewer publications in this particular dataset.
Relatively lower Computer Science and Medicine, despite general prevelance: Computer Science is often high, but only present at 9.65%, and 8.33% for medicine, shows the particular dataset is skewed.
In summary, the list showcases a strong emphasis on the physical sciences, materials science, and engineering, with significant contributions from biological and chemical sciences, and a broad representation of numerous other disciplines, showing overall, an interdisciplinary dataset.
This data represents a breakdown of publications across a range of more specific scientific topics. Here’s a summary based on the provided categories:
Dominance of Materials Science and Chemistry: “Materials Chemistry” leads significantly at 23.4%, with substantial contributions from related fields like “Organic Chemistry,” “Inorganic Chemistry,” “Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials,” and “Physical and Theoretical Chemistry.” This indicates a strong overall focus on the development, characterization, and application of materials.
Significant Presence of Biology and Related Fields: “Molecular Biology” holds a strong second position (17.6%), with further contributions from “Biomedical Engineering,” “Genetics,” “Cell Biology,” and various neuroscience specializations. This highlights a robust representation of life sciences research.
Physics and Astronomy Cluster: “Astronomy and Astrophysics” (13.8%) is prominent, alongside other physics sub-disciplines like “Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics,” “Nuclear and High Energy Physics,” and “Condensed Matter Physics.”
Engineering Disciplines Well-Represented: Various engineering fields appear, including “Electrical and Electronic Engineering,” “Mechanical Engineering,” “Aerospace Engineering,” and “Automotive Engineering,” reflecting a focus on applied science and technology.
Environmental and Energy Focus: “Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment,” “Global and Planetary Change,” “Atmospheric Science,” and “Oceanography” collectively represent a significant portion, demonstrating an emphasis on environmental and climate-related research.
Computational Topics Emerging: “Artificial Intelligence,” “Computational Mechanics,” “Computational Theory and Mathematics,” “Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition,” and “Signal Processing” indicate the growing importance of computational methods and data analysis across various disciplines. *Substantial showing of earth sciences: “Atmospheric Science”, “Global and Planetary Change”,”Oceanography”, and “Geophysics” show a sizable presence.
In essence, the data reveals a strong concentration in materials science, chemistry, molecular biology, and physics, with significant contributions from engineering, environmental science, and computational fields. It showcases the interdisciplinary nature of modern scientific research, with many topics bridging multiple traditional disciplines.
The list below shows the most frequent topic areas in the data:
Physics and Astronomy, 28.9%
Materials Science, 28.0%
Engineering, 27.9%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology, 20.1%
Chemistry, 15.8%
Earth and Planetary Sciences, 12.0%
Environmental Science, 10.7%
Computer Science, 9.65%
Medicine, 8.33%
Energy, 4.87%
Chemical Engineering, 3.55%
Neuroscience, 3.26%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences, 2.55%
Immunology and Microbiology, 1.84%
Decision Sciences, 1.61%
Mathematics, 1.37%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics, 1.09%
Psychology, 0.568%
Nursing, 0.378%
Social Sciences, 0.237%
Veterinary, 0.189%
Health Professions, 0.142%
Business, Management and Accounting, 0.0946%
Arts and Humanities, 0.0946%
Economics, Econometrics and Finance, 0.0473%
Dentistry, 0.0473%