Portugal in the Semi-Periphery of Scientific Research

In 2015, almost half of the world’s population was at risk of developing malaria and 212 million new cases were reported. As such, malaria is a major threat for public health, particularly in geographies where it is endemic, mostly in poor countries and regions. Despite these numbers, malaria was the focus of only 0.4% of all biomedical research, with studies being mostly conducted in North America and Europe.

In Portugal, science has long contributed to the understanding of malaria, a feature commonly attributed to malaria’s endemicity in continental Portugal until 1973, and to the long-standing relations with Portugal’s former territories, where malaria remains endemic. However, it was never addressed whether the organizations where malaria research takes place, the research practices and their underlying ethos are framed by Portugal’s relations with its former territories, or rather, by Portugal’s relations with more developed scientific and technological systems, such as the ones of the European Union.

This paper addresses these issues through the characterization of the scientific landscape of malaria research in all Web of science-indexed publications involving Portuguese organizations (1900-2014; n=467). First, data was systematized by content and bibliometric analyses. Subsequently, multiple correspondence analysis revealed a bi-dimensional landscape (who’s publishing; what’s published) and cluster analysis identified three profiles: beginners (early non-experimental publications); local appropriations (low-impact research in which Portuguese organizations lead others from former Portuguese territories); global patterns (applied research developed by heterogeneous actors, in which Portuguese organizations are subordinated to others belonging to countries from more established S&T systems).

These profiles reveal the construction and considerable growth of the Portuguese scientific system. Nevertheless, it further unveils Portugal’s participation in a world system where it assumes a semi-peripheral role, embodying performance- and application-driven modes of production from the center, and reinforcing them, by imposing some of its features in the periphery.