Scientific status of endocrine, diabetes, and metabolism research centers of the universities of medical sciences in Iran according to their scientific productions using exergy method

Advent of thermodynamic parameters such as exergy in the field of scientometrics and bibliometrics in 2012 offers a new ranking parameter. Exergy is an indicator of research performance which is a merger of quantity and quality. This study aimed at determining academic status of research centers of endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism of Iranian medical universities based on their scientific productions indexed in citation databases of Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar using exergy in 2013. This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study. Statistical population was selected from six endocrine, diabetes, and metabolism research centers. Data were extracted from the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education as well as other citation databases. Microsoft Excel version 2007 was used for data analysis using descriptive statistics. This study showed high research performance of endocrinology and metabolism research centers of Tehran and Shahid Beheshti universities of Medical Sciences. The iCX and iPX mappings showed higher quantity and quality of research works performed in these two research centers. Among the research centers, diabetes research center of Ahvaz University of Medical Sciences had the lowest performance. In this study we found in addition to quantity, quality was also effective in the promotion of the scientific status of the research centers. Thus, integration of these two factors in one index can overcome the shortcomings of other indicators of scientometrics and bibliometrics.