Spanish National Oncological Research Center (CNIO): a bibliometric portrait

Madrid's CNIO (Spanish National Oncological Research Center) ranks among the three first institutions in the world, specifically dedicated to cancer research. CNIO research mainly focuses on three aspects: use of stem cells to fix problematic cancer damage, searches for genes that cause cancer disease, and use of drug design to manage oncological disorders.

The main goal of this study is to determine the effectiveness of the 'translation' of basic discoveries generated at this cancer research center, into new interventions aimed at preventing and treating various types of cancer, with bibliometric criteria.

A corpus of published articles and citations received by CNIO between 1998 and 2016 has been retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) database. Bibliometric indicators considered here are: citation practices, use of journals on the basis of their impact factors, scientific literature citing CNIO publications, and international connectedness of CNIO researchers.

A total of 3510 articles were published by CNIO between 1998 and 2016, 23% of which in journals with impact factors between 10 and 15 and above 15. Along the same period, the institution received 135,769 citations published in more than 5800 journals, where the most important citing journals were the Plos One with 3.6% of all the citing articles, Oncotarget with 1.8%, and Scientific Reports with 1.2%. The highest number of citations was 18,005 in 2007; in terms of average citation rate, the first ranked CNIO research program was in the area of experimental therapeutics (77.79%), followed by molecular oncology (68.1%). This position was provided by the active growth in citation to the articles whose themes are related to the problems of the consequences of the design of preclinical drug candidates and the study of oncological disorders.

From this study on a number of bibliometric characteristics of the Spanish National Oncological Research Center (CNIO), we conclude that the publication activity (since 2006 its scientific production has increased in about 83%), the number of high-quality journals used per year, the high influence, and impact of the journals and organizations citing the institution, consolidate its image as a top-notch oncological research center.