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Papers from EU medicines R&D fund cited at twice global average

   

Quarter of publications from IMI projects in top 10 per cent of most-cited papers

Scientific publications from projects funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative, a public-private R&D partnership between the EU and the European pharmaceutical industry, are cited at twice the global average, according to an analysis.

The most recent completed phase of the IMI—which was launched in 2008—ran from 2014 to 2020 and had a budget of €3.3 billion to fund collaborative R&D projects developing medicines in areas of unmet need.

The analysis carried out by the analytics company Clarivate*, published on 29 September, found that two-thirds of papers resulting from IMI projects between 2010 and 2020 were published in high-impact journals. Citation rates were substantially higher than the European average, and twice as high as the global average.

Just over a quarter of publications were considered highly cited, in that they were in the top 10 per cent of the world’s most-cited papers.

Between 2010 and 2020, the only year that the number of IMI publications did not increase compared with the previous year was in 2019. This trend reversed in 2020, when the number of publications increased by 19 per cent on 2019 and 10 per cent on 2018.

The main centres for research supported by IMI in Europe are London, Amsterdam and Stockholm, and 63 per cent of IMI papers were internationally collaborative.

 

*Research Professional News is an editorially independent part of Ex Libris, a ProQuest company. In May, it was announced that Clarivate had signed a definitive agreement to acquire ProQuest.