[Dental research in the Netherlands: Ph.D theses 1956-1994]

The number of PhD-theses by Dutch scientists shows a continuous increase over the last four decades, resulting in about 20 theses per year during the early nineties. They cover a wide range of subjects in all major disciplines of dental research and nowadays are usually written in English (in 80% of the cases). A substantial proportion (23%) of all dental theses comes from scientists not trained as dentist but in other disciplines like biochemistry and psychology. So far, the drastic decline in the number of Dental Schools in the Netherlands during the eighties has had little influence on the overall outcome of PhD-theses. The international impact of Dutch dental research seems to increase over the years as shown by the declining fraction of Dutch dental scientists who are never cited in the international dental literature.