Producción científica de América Latina y el Caribe: una aproximación a través de los datos de Scopus (1996 - 2007)

the study, carried out on the data from scopus shows the main trends and characteristics of scientific production in latin america and the caribbean in the period 1996-2008. the scientific production and citation, publication profiles and cooperation were studied, with special emphasis on the ten major producers of the region. the analysis revealed an important increase of scientific production in the recent years, a growth observed in almost all the countries, with brazil on top of the list representing 50% of the total production in 2007. the region as a whole increased its percentual weight in the world, in its production as citation, and the growth has been even higher in citation; however, the visibility of regional science, in terms of average citation per document, ranked below the world average, the smaller countries reaching the highest averages. in summary, scientific production has been characterized by a high international cooperation, which has also grown significantly, and although the interegional cooperation has experienced a higher growth, it is still precarious.