Transdisciplinary knowledge production in mainstream journals: from the perspective of the participation of social actors in Mexico

Abstract

Contemporary scientific production can no longer be explained with traditional actors and procedures. We conducted a transdisciplinary bibliometric study to identify and analyze the participation of social actors in the publications in mainstream journals with a Mexican affiliation during 2015, in the Web of Science. 22,331 articles were obtained with at least one Mexican authorship. More than one hundred different social actors were identified, grouped into 49 categories. The actors were segmented into (1) academic actors (79.15%), affiliated to universities and research centers; and (2) non-academic actors (20.85%), who do not have knowledge production within their main activities. Academic actors have greater participation in the fields of life sciences, engineering, and physical sciences, while non-academics affect the field of health and life sciences. Mexico City contains the most significant number of affiliations (41.87%), which a high academic contribution (65.21%). Most of this production corresponds to articles (72.56%) written in English (81.94%) and published in scientific journals located in the first two JCR quartiles (57.85%). The results show differences when comparing academic and non-academic actors. We conclude that the participation of a broad group of social actors with different patterns of knowledge production has been identified with empirical evidence.