Uddin Mohy, Alharbi Naif Khalaf
Research Quality Management Section, King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Ministry of National Guard-Health Affairs, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Digit Health. 2023 May 30;9:20552076231178621. doi: 10.1177/20552076231178621. eCollection 2023 Jan-Dec.
The main objective of this review was to synthesize the progress, challenges and prospects of biomedical research in Saudi Arabia in order to provide a holistic view to all stakeholders, such as policy makers, decision makers, and local researchers along with external collaborators interested in the field of biomedical research in this region.
A systematic review was conducted using the scientific literature for bibliometric studies in the field of biomedical research in Saudi Arabia that comprehensively covered past few decades using PubMed. The search was performed by combining verified Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms: "biomedical research", "bibliometrics", "Saudi Arabia" using boolean operator "AND". The data collection was done from January to June 2022 by both authors.
Out of 202 articles yielded from initial search, 13 articles met all of the inclusion criteria and were examined in details. The outcome of analysis showed that with the augmentation of Research and Development (R&D) globalization in Saudi Arabia, researchers are publishing internationally and collaborating globally, academic and research centers are enriching research environment and policies, and government is taking many initiatives to bolster biomedical research; but still more improvements needs to be achieved by Saudi Arabia to be in the list of strong competitive leading nations in the global biomedical research field.
There were various key challenges related to biomedical publications and bibliometric aspects for Saudi Arabia that included: publishing preferences, quality of publications, indexing services, international scientific community, and importantly barriers related to planning, funding, training, resources and support at institutional and national levels. This review provided some insights and recommendations to enhance biomedical research in Saudi Arabia that included: effective policies, health priorities, building infrastructures, greater investments, high incentives, skilled recruitment, competitive training and engagement of community that can play a vital role in this context.
本综述的主要目的是综合沙特阿拉伯生物医学研究的进展、挑战和前景，以便为所有利益相关者提供全面的视角，这些利益相关者包括政策制定者、决策者、当地研究人员以及对该地区生物医学研究领域感兴趣的外部合作者。
使用科学文献对沙特阿拉伯生物医学研究领域的文献计量学研究进行系统综述，通过PubMed全面涵盖过去几十年的情况。搜索是通过结合经过验证的医学主题词（MeSH）：“生物医学研究”、“文献计量学”、“沙特阿拉伯”，使用布尔运算符“AND”进行的。两位作者于2022年1月至6月进行了数据收集。
在初步搜索得到的202篇文章中，有13篇符合所有纳入标准并进行了详细审查。分析结果表明，随着沙特阿拉伯研发全球化的增强，研究人员在国际上发表论文并进行全球合作，学术和研究中心正在丰富研究环境和政策，政府也在采取多项举措来支持生物医学研究；但沙特阿拉伯仍需取得更多进步，才能跻身全球生物医学研究领域具有强大竞争力的领先国家之列。
沙特阿拉伯在生物医学出版物和文献计量方面存在各种关键挑战，包括：出版偏好、出版物质量、索引服务、国际科学界，以及重要的是在机构和国家层面与规划、资金、培训、资源和支持相关的障碍。本综述提供了一些见解和建议，以加强沙特阿拉伯的生物医学研究，包括：有效的政策、卫生优先事项、建设基础设施、增加投资、高额激励、招聘熟练人员、开展有竞争力的培训以及让社区参与，这些在这方面可以发挥至关重要的作用。
