Resumo

LETA, Jacqueline. Indicadores de desempenho, ciência brasileira e a cobertura das bases informacionais. Rev. USP [online]. 2011, n.89, pp. 62-67. ISSN 0103-9989.

Devising and organizing mechanisms to evaluate and monitor scientific activities has become a routine practice among many research support institutions in developed countries since the 1960s. It can be noted that, along with peer-review procedures, the performance of science and of scientists has turned out to be measured and evaluated by means of objective parameters, and many of them fall within the scope of the studies of Scientometry. Throughout decades, the interest in indicators of producti-vity (number of publications) and of visibility (number of citations) has spread, and they are largely used in most countries. Such process was no different in Brazil: the main agencies have made use of those indicators to make public and estimate the performance of Brazilian science, and also to provide support to models for evalua-ting individuals and institutions, as is the case with the graduate programs. This text aims at placing Scientometry into the context of mechanisms of science monitoring, as well as providing a panorama of the main characteristics of Brazilian science, pointed out in many scientometric studies. Finally, it discusses the limitations of the main information bases which have been served a source for studies of this nature.

Palavras-chave : Scientometry; Brazilian science; information bases.