EU27 and USA leadership in fruit and vegetableresearch: a bibliometric study from 2000 to 2009

Marie-Violaine Tatry • Dominique Fournier • Benoıt Jeannequin •

Francoise Dosba

Received: 19 August 2013 / Published online: 7 November 2013� Akademiai Kiado, Budapest, Hungary 2013

Abstract We performed an analysis of published literature related to fruit and vegetable

and indexed in the Web of Science�, covering the period 2000–2009. The EU27 and the

USA are the two leading actors in terms of number of fruit and vegetable articles pub-

lished. This paper compares their publication outputs using bibliometric methods. We

assessed the fruit and vegetable species, topics (from Web of Science� categories),

countries and institutions involved. The top species, topics and institutions are ranked

according to their number of publications. Collaboration networks between countries were

mapped to visualize the intensity of the relationships involved in international fruit and

vegetable research and to obtain an overall picture of the fruit and vegetable research

landscape. These results can be useful for policy makers.

Keywords Fruit � Vegetable �Bibliometrics �Research collaboration � Europe �USA

Introduction

The production of fruits and vegetables (F&V) is a key agricultural activity and plays an

important economic role in many countries. In the European Union (EU27), F&V accounts

M.-V. Tatry (&)Inra, UMR AGAP, Bat. 8, 2 Place Viala, 34060 Montpellier Cedex 2, Francee-mail: tatry@supagro.inra.fr

D. FournierInra, UAR378, SDAR ERIST, 34060 Montpellier, Francee-mail: fournied@supagro.inra.fr

B. JeannequinInra, UE0411 Alenya Roussillon, Le Mas Blanc, 66200 Alenya, Francee-mail: jeannequin@supagro.inra.fr

F. DosbaMontpellier SupAgro, UMR AGAP, TA-A 108/03 Av. Agropolis, 34398 Montpellier Cedex 5, Francee-mail: dosbaf@supagro.inra.fr

123

Scientometrics (2014) 98:2207–2222DOI 10.1007/s11192-013-1160-z

for 18 % of EU agricultural production, divided nearly equally between vegetables and

fruit (Petriccione et al. 2011). Numerous commercial exchanges between producer and

consumer countries generate gross value. Over the last decade, both the EU and the USA

have consistently recorded a trade deficit in fresh and processed fruit and vegetables

(European Commission 2012; Johnson 2012), a trend related to growing consumer health

consciousness and an associated demand for fruits and vegetables. In fact, numerous

studies have indicated that nutritional factors contribute substantially to preventing illness

(Martin et al. 2013) and F&V are an important component of a healthy diet (Van Duyn and

Pivonka 2000; WHO/FAO 2005). An increasing number of countries support campaigns to

enhance F&V consumption with programs similar to the American ‘‘5 a Day for Better

Health Program’’, but fruit and vegetable consumption remains well below the recom-

mended levels (Dallongeville et al. 2011).

Scientific publications are one outcome of research activities and they can be analyzed

using bibliometric methods (Pritchard 1969). In recent years, the research community has

become increasingly interested in using bibliometric studies to evaluate research perfor-

mance (Mingers and Lipitakis 2013; van Raan 2003) and obtain a picture of the research

landscape (Daraio et al. 2011). Although bibliometrics has been widely applied in various

fields such as aquaculture (Natale et al. 2012), photosynthesis (Yu et al. 2012) and

anaerobic digestion (Wang et al. 2013), few bibliometric studies have been conducted in

the field of F&V. The only ones have been carried out on grapes (Glanzel and Veugelers

2006) and fruits in Germany (Dalla Via and Baric 2012), and a study of the F&V publi-

cations authored by the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (Inra) (Leiser

et al. 2009; Tatry et al. 2011).

Our study was performed on scientific publications regarding the main F&V species (as

identified by FAO data in terms of production in tons) that were published between 2000

and 2009. The length of 10 years allowed us to obtain comprehensive data and minimize

annual variation. We used the international database Web of Science� (WoS�), which

indexes scientific peer-reviewed journals and provides an international overview of

research activity. Although its coverage of social science often has been criticized (Larsen

and Ins 2010), the WoS� database is useful to compare scientific outputs between countries

or groups of countries (Yang et al. 2012).

In this paper, we focused on the European Union (EU27) and the USA, the two major

actors in terms of numbers of scientific F&V publications. We chose to consider the EU27

as a whole because of the European Research Area initiative, which seeks to strengthen

research activities and policies between EU27 members. Moreover, the size of the sci-

entific community of these two actors is quite similar.

We explored the F&V species and topics studied using WoS� Categories. We identified

the main publishing institutions in the F&V field and their specializations. We studied

international collaboration between countries.

Material and methods

This study explores F&V research outputs by using the related literature in the Thomson

Reuters WoS� from 2000 to 2009. Bibliographical data were collected from four citation

databases managed by the WoS�: Science Citation Index ExpandedTM (SCIE), Social

Science Citation Index� (SSCI), and Conference Proceedings Citation IndexesSM for

Science (CPCI–S) and for Social Science & Humanities (CPCI–SSH). Our study covers the

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123

period 2000–2009 and focuses on document types articles, reviews, meeting abstracts and

proceedings papers.

Search query

Our search equation focused on the major F&V species, defined by FAOSTAT as those

traded on world markets in quantities of over one million tons in 2008. We added to this

first list the temperate F&V species studied in previous works (Leiser et al. 2009; Tatry

et al. 2011). We retained the following species listed in Table 1. Some of the F&V species

have been grouped together to be studied, for example: pepper and sweet pepper, melon

and watermelon, cherry and wild cherry, banana and plantain, citrus, brassicas, lettuce

et al., squashes et al., sweet corn et al.

Vernacular and Latin names of these species and generic terms ‘‘fruit’’ and ‘‘vegetable’’

were combined with Boolean operators to be used as a search query.

Data processing

Terms were searched for in the topic search field of the WoS� (i.e. search in title, abstract

and keywords fields). The field keywords, includes both author keywords and keywords

Plus�, which are generated by the ISI from title words of cited papers (Garfield and Sher

1993).

References were downloaded and analyzed with Sphinx Survey software (http://www.

sphinxsurvey.com) using the Lexica option, which allows statistical and text analysis. The

absence of universal and specific terminology for the names of F&V species increased the

noise in the retrieved literature and data had to be cleaned to retain only that which was

relevant. As a first step, the terms of the search query were searched for in title, author

keywords, and the beginning of the abstract (for references containing no author key-

words). This method allows us to exclude references retrieved because one of the searched

terms is in the keywords Plus�. The second step consisted of homonym exclusion, e.g. sea

cucumber, orange (color), coffee cherry, etc. The third step was a manual screening per-

formed by experts to remove references that did not deal with human consumption, i.e.

field pea, fodder kale, sugar beet, potato starch, wood or forest studies (for walnut, wild

cherry, chestnut or nut trees). For grape and maize, references were taken into account only

Table 1 List of the fruit and vegetable species names used in our search equation

Fruit species Almond (19); apple (3); apricot (18); avocado (17); banana and plantain (1); cashew nut(15); cherry and wild cherry (20); citrus (orange, pomelo, lemon…) (2); coconut (5);date fruit (13); fig (24); grape (4); hazelnut (25); kiwi (22); mango, mangosteen andguava (6), olive (9); peach (10); pear (7); persimmon (16); pineapple (8); prune fruit(11); papaya (12); strawberry (14); sweet chestnut (23); walnut (21)

blueberry, cranberry, raspberry, blackberry, litchi, black currant, quince, red currant,cornelian cherry

Vegetablespecies

Artichoke and cardoon (26); asparagus (21); brassicas (7); carrot and turnip (13); commonbean (16); cucumber (10); eggplant (11); garlic (17); ginger (25); gumbo (22); leek (24);lentil (23); lettuce, chicory et al. (14); manioc (3); melon and watermelon (5); onion (8);pea (20); pepper and sweet pepper (12); potato (2); spinach (18); squashes et al. (15);sweet corn et al. (1); sweet potato (6); taro (19); tomato (4); yam (9)

radish, faba bean, beet, shallot, chives and chervil

For the main economic species identified by FAOSTAT, their rank in terms of world production (tons in2008) is in brackets. Additional species are written in italics

Scientometrics (2014) 98:2207–2222 2209

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if clearly linked to human consumption (e.g. table grape, raisin, grape juice, sweet corn,

polenta…). Terms ‘‘fruit’’ and ‘‘vegetable’’ were searched for in references only if no

vegetable or fruit species were identified. References retrieved because of the term fruit

were screened to take into account only references dealing with fruit with no indication of

species (i.e. no botanic name, no fruit name such as, for example, star fruit).

These steps led to the creation of an exhaustive and relevant dataset related to fruit and

vegetable named the ‘‘F&V corpus’’.

Additional variables

Lexical analysis was applied to different bibliographic fields of the WoS� references,

enabling additional variables to be created.

Species were identified for each paper during data processing and we also identified

countries and institutions, which are embedded in the author address field. They are

generally written according to a top-down pattern, i.e. ‘‘institution, subdivision, town,

country’’, but data had to be harmonized manually (subdivision written before institution,

different spellings or abbreviations for the same institution…). Different names and

acronyms identified for one institution were grouped under one heading through an

additional internet search. References signed in England, Scotland, North Ireland and

Wales were grouped under the name UK. EU27 countries are taken into account for all of

the years studied, although twelve countries joined the EU between 2000 and 2009.

For each country and institution, the F&V Specialization Index (SI) was calculated by

the ratio between its F&V publications share and its world publications share (OST, http://

www.obs-ost.fr/). This indicator provided information on the weight of F&V research

activity in each country or institution. When an SI value is above 1, a country is considered

to be specialized in the F&V sector compared with the rest of the world. Specialisation

indexes also were calculated for species and WoS� categories.

To display data on geographical maps, we used C&D 6 software (http://www.articque.

com/en/products/cd.html). Collaboration networks were drawn using Gephi (https://gephi.

org/) with layout algorithm Force Atlas 2.

Results

Main countries

According to the WoS�, a total of 90,751 publications on F&V were published between

2000 and 2009. While F&V are studied worldwide (Table 2), Europe and USA respec-

tively account for 40.6 and 23 % of the F&V corpus.

The top five European countries in terms of publications (Spain, Italy, UK, Germany

and France) (Fig. 1) are also EU27 members, and the EU27 accounts for 35.8 % of the

F&V corpus. With 2.6 % of F&V corpus, Turkey is the main European contributing

country outside the EU27.

The number of F&V publications rose by 52 % during the 2000–2009 period (Table 3),

which is comparable to the overall rise of the publications indexed in the WoS� during the

same period (?51 %). Compared to the world average, the increase of publication number

was higher for EU27 countries, with a 132 % increase, while it increased more slowly in

the USA (?38 %). The specialization index (SI) provides information on the weight of

F&V research activity in each country.

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With an F&V SI lower than 1, the USA focuses its research on scientific fields other

than F&V. In contrast, the EU27 has an F&V specialisation index above 1. This finding

shows that F&V research represents an important part of the scientific research in the

EU27.

Main F&V species and specialization index

The following results are related to the main F&V species, which account for more than

2 % of the F&V corpus.

Figures 2 and 3 provide information about the main species and their specialization

index for the USA and EU27. The horizontal axis measures share of publications for Fruit

(F) or Vegetable (V) species and the vertical axis measures the specialization index. These

figures allow the weight of EU27 and USA research carried on the different F&V species

to be estimated.

Figure 2 shows that with more than 10 % of F publications, olive, apple and fruits

(corresponding to cases where no particular fruit species is specified) are the major species

studied in the EU27. Apple, citrus and fruits are the major species studied in the USA.

Unlike the USA, EU27 research is highly specialized in olive; this can be explained by

its ancient local domestication and diffusion around the Mediterranean Basin. EU27

research is also specialized in cherry and wild cherry. Of all of the fruits, the EU27 is least

specialized in mango and blueberry.

USA research is highly specialized in four fruit species (blueberry, walnut, fruits, and

citrus) and weakly specialized in olive, kiwi, mango, banana and plantain.

Table 2 Percentage of publications in the F&V corpus and name of major countries (publishing at least2 % of F&V corpus) for the seven geographical areas of OST (in bold) (OST 2010)

Geographical area (OST) Percentage ofF&V corpus

Major countries (at least 2 % of F&V corpus)

Europe 40.6

EU 27 35.8 Spain (1st), Italy (2nd), UK (3rd),Germany (4th), France (5th), Netherlands (6th)

Other European countries 5.7 Turkey (1st)

North America 28.0 USA (1st), Canada (2nd)

Asia 21.3

Southeast Asia 16.0 Japan (1st), China (2nd), South Korea (3rd)

South Asia 5.4 India (1st)

Central and South America 8.0

South America 7.5 Brazil (1st)

Central America and Carribean 0.5

Africa 4.4

Sub-Saharan Africa 3.1

North Africa 1.3

Oceania 3.9

Australia and New Zealand 3.8 Australia (1st)

Other countries from Oceania 0.1

Near and Middle East 3.2

Scientometrics (2014) 98:2207–2222 2211

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Figure 3 provides data for V species and shows that tomato, potato and vegetables

(corresponding to cases where no particular vegetable species is specified) are the major

vegetable species studies in the EU27 and the USA, representing over 10 % of V

publications.

EU27 research is highly specialized in pea (unlike the USA) and specialized in carrot

(unlike the USA), potato and tomato. EU27 research is not specialized in sweet potato

(unlike the USA) and garlic.

USA research is specialized in sweet corn et al., melon and watermelon, squashes et al.

and sweet potato, while the EU27 has a weak specialization in these species.

Fig. 1 Number of publications in the F&V corpus for European countries without Russia (WoS�

2000–2009)

Table 3 Number of publications and F&V specialization index for the F&V corpus (world), EU27 andUSA

Number of publications2000–2009

Share (%) Evolution between2000 and 2009 (%)

F&V specializationindex (SI)

World 90,751 – ?52.2 1.0

EU27 32,519 35.8 ?131.5 1.1

USA 20,838 23 ?38.0 0.7

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Other species of world interest (such as manioc and mango) are studied relatively little

in Europe and USA. Research on these two species is conducted in Nigeria (manioc), India

(mango) and Brazil (both species) (data not shown).

Main WoS� categories and specialization index

Like numerous other bibliometric studies, we explored research fields through WoS�

categories.

The disciplinary profile of the F&V corpus is composed of 221 WoS� categories,

showing that F&V research covers a large range of disciplines and topics. However, 11

WoS� categories account for more than 2,000 publications in the F&V corpus. Plant

Sciences, Horticulture, Agronomy and Food Science and Technology encompass at least

15,000 publications of the F&V corpus (Table 4).

These four WoS� categories are also the main WoS� categories of the EU27 and the

USA, but not in the same order. For the EU27, Food Science and Technology is the third

WoS� category, followed by Agronomy and Chemistry, Applied. For the USA, Horti-

culture is the first WoS� category and Entomology is ranked fifth (compared to ninth in the

F&V corpus). The SI for the EU27 and the USA are calculated for these main WoS�

categories.

For the EU27, the highest SIs are identified for Chemistry, Applied (1.4), Genetics and

Heredity (1.4), Nutrition and Dietetics (1.3) and Food Science and Technology (1.2). In

contrast, the EU27 is not specialized in Entomology (0.7). For the USA, the highest SIs are

identified for Entomology (1.7) and Horticulture (1.1).

Main institutions and their specificities (WoS� categories and species)

Table 5 ranks the main research organizations and universities within the EU27 and the

USA which published over 400 papers between 2000 and 2009.

Fig. 2 Specialization index (SI) and percentage of fruit publications for the main fruit species (2 % of theworld fruit corpus) for the EU27 (black triangle) and the USA (white square) If SI [ 1, research is morespecialized than the world average

Scientometrics (2014) 98:2207–2222 2213

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With 4,262 papers, USDA–ARS is the most active research organization in the F&V

field. The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), French National Institute for

Agricultural Research (Inra), Wageningen University & Research Center (WUR) and

Italian National Research Council (CNR) are the most active European research institu-

tions and universities. Among the 26 main institutions, 15 are American and 18 are

universities showing that EU27 and USA F&V research landscape is mainly dominated by

Fig. 3 Specialization index (SI) and percentage of vegetable publications for the main vegetable species(2 % of the world vegetable corpus) for the EU27 (black triangle) and the USA (white square) If SI [ 1,research is more specialized than the world average

Table 4 Number of publication and specialization index for the EU27 and the USA for the main WoS�

categories, at least 2,000 publications in the F&V corpus

WoS� category Number of publicationsin F&V corpus

EU27 SI EU27 USA SI USA

Plant Sciences 22,163 8,505 1.1 5,118 1.0

Horticulture 21,711 7,145 0.9 5,575 1.1

Agronomy 15,334 5,838 1.1 2,827 0.8

Food Science and Technology 15,199 6,659 1.2 2,595 0.7

Agriculture, Multidisciplinary 7,054 2,570 1.0 1,019 0.6

Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology 5,806 2,106 1.0 1,217 0.9

Chemistry, Applied 5,801 2,988 1.4 931 0.7

Biochemistry & Molecular Biology 5,662 2,191 1.1 1,246 1.0

Entomology 4,577 1,159 0.7 1,823 1.7

Nutrition & Dietetics 4,036 1,832 1.3 813 0.9

Genetics & Heredity 2,770 1,374 1.4 671 1.1

In bold, SI [ 1 i.e. territory specialized in the WoS� category

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Table 5 Main WoS� and species studied for the major USA and EU27 institutions publishing

USA and EU27institutions, ISOalpha-2 code

Number ofpublications

Three (four in case of equality)main WoS� categories(number of publications)

Three (four in case of equality) mainfruit or vegetable species studied(number of publications)

USDA ARS,USA

4,262 Horticulture (1,155)Plant Sciences (1,074)Agronomy (705)

Potato (514)Apple (408)Citrus (323)

CSIC, ES 2,129 Food Science and Technology(739)

Plant Sciences (560)Chemistry, Applied (436)

Olive (539)Tomato (158)Citrus (155)

Univ Florida,USA

1,907 Horticulture (787)Plant Sciences (474)Agronomy (278)

Citrus (635)Tomato (271)Strawberry (136)

Inra, FR 1,613 Plant Sciences (624)Horticulture (427)Agronomy (381)

Tomato (189)Apple (158)Pea (128)

Univ Calif Davis,USA

1,340 Horticulture (433)Plant Sciences (416)Agronomy (235)

Tomato (222)Lettuce et al. (116)Peach (113)

Univ Wageningen& Res Ctr, NL

1,302 Plant Sciences (447)Horticulture (332)Agronomy (316)

Potato (306)Tomato (217)Apple (118)

Cornell Univ, US 1,177 Plant Sciences (440)Horticulture (389)Agronomy (204)

Apple (283)Potato (161)Tomato (149)

CNR, IT 860 Plant Sciences (269)Horticulture (218)Agronomy (175)

Olive (166)Tomato (92)Citrus (78)

Washington StateUniv, USA

807 Plant Sciences (253)Horticulture (183)Agronomy (149)

Apple (173)Potato (172)Pea (62)Cherry and wild cherry (62)

Michigan StateUniv, USA

764 Horticulture (251)Plant Sciences (204)Agronomy (150)

Apple (122)Potato (103)Cherry and wild cherry (97)

Univ Wisconsin,USA

687 Plant Sciences (254)Agronomy (191)Horticulture (180)

Potato (214)Carrot (67)Cucumber (52)

Univ Georgia,USA

653 Horticulture (186)Plant Sciences (168)Food Science and Technology

(148)

Blueberry (77)Tomato (69)Onion (68)

Oregon StateUniv, USA

639 Horticulture (246)Plant Sciences (173)Agronomy (131)

Pear (113)Potato (92)Apple (61)

N Carolina StateUniv, USA

575 Horticulture (191)Plant Sciences (159)Food Science and Technology

(85)

Tomato (74)Sweet potato (59)Cucumber (58)

Scientometrics (2014) 98:2207–2222 2215

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Table 5 continued

USA and EU27institutions, ISOalpha-2 code

Number ofpublications

Three (four in case of equality)main WoS� categories(number of publications)

Three (four in case of equality) mainfruit or vegetable species studied(number of publications)

CRA, IT 568 Horticulture (202)Food Science and Technology

(151)Agronomy (139)Plant Sciences (139)

Olive (124)Peach (52)Tomato (39)

Texas A&MUniv, USA

545 Horticulture (197)Plant Sciences (112)Food Science and Technology

(100)

Melon and watermelon (84)Citrus (81)Tomato (43)Potato (43)

Univ PolytechValencia, ES

533 Plant Sciences (168)Food Science and Technology

(143)Horticulture (105)

Citrus (121)Tomato (70)Melon and watermelon (43)

Catholic UnivLeuven, BE

519 Food Science and Technology(198)

Horticulture (157) Agronomy(142)

Apple (106)Banana and plantain (98)Tomato (57)

Ohio State Univ,USA

516 Plant Sciences (128)Horticulture (126)Food Science and Technology

(101)

Tomato (126)Potato (43)Blackberry (42)

Univ Bologna, IT 490 Horticulture (177)Food Science and Technology

(135)Plant Sciences (107)

Apple (102)Olive (69)Pear (69)

Cirad, FR 443 Plant Sciences (124)Food Science and Technology

(108)Horticulture (108)

Banana and plantain (133)Coconuta (49)Mango (44)

Univ CalifRiverside, USA

442 Plant Sciences (135)Entomology (117)Horticulture (83)

Citrus (88)Avocadoa (70)Tomato (35)

Univ Illinois,USA

438 Plant Sciences (129)Food Science and Technology

(87)Horticulture (72)

Sweet corn et al. (77)Apple (52)Brassicas (52)

IVIA InstValencianoInvest Agr, ES

434 Plant Sciences (149)Horticulture (141)Agronomy (103)

Citrus (228)Apricota (26)Prune fruit (17)Tomato (17)

Univ Warwick,GB

406 Plant Sciences (195)Agronomy (137)Horticulture (133)

Brassicas (68)Tomato (59)Apple (55)

Penn State Univ,USA

403 Plant Sciences (114)Horticulture (75)Agronomy (59)

Apple (79)Potato (52)Tomato (42)

a Species below 2 % of the F&V corpus

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universities. For the EU27, Table 5 lists three Spanish institutions (CSIC, Polytech

Valencia and Ivia), three Italian institutions (CNR, CRA, University Bologna), two French

institutions (Inra and Cirad) and one university from United Kingdom (University

Warwick).

In countries where F&V research is conducted by numerous, different organizations, no

one organization may be ranked among the top. This is the case of Germany, which ranks

4th in terms of number of publications, although no German institution is ranked in

Table 5. In contrast, we note a Belgium university (Catholic University Leuven) in Table 5

although Belgium is ranked 8th among European countries with 1,299 F&V publications.

Table 5 provides additional information about the research fields (WoS� categories)

and main species studied by the EU27 and USA institutions which have published more

than 400 papers in the F&V corpus.

For 14 institutions, the main WoS� categories are Plant Sciences, Horticulture and

Agronomy. Nine institutions publish on Food Science and Technology, Plant Sciences,

Horticulture, and CSIC publishes on Food Science and Technology, Plant Sciences and

Chemistry, Applied. Only one American university (University California Riverside)

publishes in Plant Sciences, Entomology and Horticulture.

Tomato, potato and apple are the most studied species of the main institutions in

Table 5. They are species of agronomic interest and also model plants.

Some institutions listed in Table 5 studied fruit species (e.g. CRA, University Bologna,

Cirad and Ivia) while others studied vegetable species (WUR, University Wisconsin).

Among the American institutions listed in table 5, some conduct specific studies on

species of great economic interest for the state where the research is conducted. For

example, citrus is studied by University Florida, and Florida is the world’s leading pro-

ducer of grapefruit and second leading producer for oranges. The University of Georgia

works on blueberry, and Georgia was ranked 4th in the world for blueberry production in

2008. North Carolina State University studies sweet potato, and North Carolina is the

leading American state for sweet potato production. University of Wisconsin publishes

works on carrot and Wisconsin is ranked third among US states for carrot production.

For EU27 countries, Spanish institutions published works on olive (CSIC) and citrus

(University Polytech Valencia and Ivia). These two species are of economic interest for

Spain and University Polytech Valencia and Ivia are established in the province of

Valencia which is an area of citrus production.

Due to their historical heritage, some EU27 institutions also publish works on tropical

species: banana and plantain and coconut for Cirad (French research centre working with

developing countries) and banana and plantain for Laboratory of Tropical Crop

Improvement of Catholic University Leuven (Belgium).

Table 6 lists institutions from the USA and the EU27 which published more than 1,000

publications in the F&V corpus. SI were calculated for the main WoS� categories of the

F&V corpus (Table 4) and are shown only if superior to 1.

In the USA, USDA ARS and University of Florida are highly specialized in Ento-

mology. For EU27 countries, the highest SIs were identified for CSIC (Chemistry, Applied

and Food Science and Technology) and Inra (Genetics & Heredity). Some of the higher SIs

were for WoS� categories which are not in the main publishing WoS� categories.

International collaborations

We considered a paper to be an international co-publication when more than one country

was provided in the author address field. In the F&V corpus, almost 15.5 % of the

Scientometrics (2014) 98:2207–2222 2217

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publications result from international collaborations. The percentage of international col-

laborations is higher for the EU27 (26.2 %) and the USA (23.8 %) compared to the rest of

the world, which confirms the importance of international collaboration in F&V research.

Figure 4 shows the collaboration network of the EU27 and the USA, which involves

countries with whom they have published at least 100 papers from 2000 to 2009. The main

EU27 partnerships are with the USA (5.1 % of EU27 publications), China and Brazil. The

main USA partnerships are with the EU27 (7.9 % of USA publications), Mexico and

Canada.

Both the EU27 and USA collaborate with large advanced economies as well as with

new emerging and developing countries, but the EU27 works with a wider range of

partners than the USA. Indeed, the EU27 has co-published at least 100 papers with 23

different countries, including those in Africa (Tunisia, Morocco, Uganda, Nigeria), South

America (Chili, Argentina, Columbia), non EU27 members in Europe (Switzerland,

Norway and Russia), and India. Tunisia and Switzerland rank among the 10 main EU27

partners.

The USA has nine main partners with whom it have published at least 100 papers.

Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Israel, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and China are

by far the most important USA partners.

At least 10 % of EU27 publications involve two or more EU27 countries. These

intra-EU27 collaborations are shown in Fig. 5. Many international collaborations involve

the six highest publishing EU27 countries (Spain, Italy, UK, Germany, France and

Netherlands), which publish together and with the USA as is shown on the network by

the width of the links. It is interesting to note important collaborations between Spain

and Portugal.

Table 6 Specialization indexes in the main WoS� categories of the F&V corpus for the USA and EU27institutions publishing more than 1,000 publications on F&V

Main USA and EU27 institutions,ISO alpha-2 code

Number of publications SI [ 1

USDA ARS, USA 4,262 Entomology (2.8)Horticulture (1.1)

CSIC, ES 2,129 Chemistry, Applied (3.2)Food Science and Technology (2.0)Agriculture, Multidisciplinary (1.9)Nutrition and Dietetics (1.3)Plant Sciences (1.1)

Univ Florida, USA 1,907 Entomology (2.3)Horticulture (1.5)

Inra, FR 1,613 Genetics and Heredity (2.7)Plant Sciences (1.2)Agronomy (1.1)Biotechnology and Applied

Microbiology (1.1)

Univ Calif Davis, USA 1,340 Entomology (1.1)Genetics and Heredity (1.1)

Wageningen Univ and Res Ctr, NL 1,302 Genetics and Heredity (1.5)

Cornell Univ, USA 1,177 Genetics and Heredity (1.5)

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Fig. 4 Collaboration network between the EU27 and main countries (with more than 100 co-publications)performed by Gephi using Force Atlas 2 layout. The size of the nodes shows the number of F&Vpublications of each country (WoS�, 2000–2009). Links widths are proportional to number of collaborations

Fig. 5 Collaboration network between the USA and the main EU27 countries (with more than 50 co-publications), performed by Gephi using Force Atlas 2 layout. The size of the nodes shows the number ofF&V publications of each country (WoS�, 2000–2009). Links widths are proportional to number ofcollaborations

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Discussion

Our study identifies the most important countries in terms of their share in producing

the world’s scientific research papers related to fruit and vegetables. The EU27 and the

USA have produced respectively 35.8 and 23.0 % of the F&V publications. Several

studies have shown that the USA is the leader of the world’s scientific community

(National Science Board 2012), followed by the UK, China and Germany, but few

bibliometric studies consider the EU27 as a whole. Several reports indicate that

Europe has overtaken the USA as the world’s leader in scientific publications

(National Science Board 2012). Indeed, the EU27 is a political structure with an

objective of ‘‘strengthening its scientific and technological bases by achieving a

European research area’’. Our study confirms that the EU27 is the major scientific

actor in terms of F&V publications and Spain ranks 1st in the EU27. The principal

EU27 publishing countries are also the main F&V producers, as also has been shown

by Dalla Via and Baric (2012) for fruit publications.

From 2000 to 2009, the increase of F&V publications is comparable with the increase of

scientific publications in the WoS�. Although this increase may be explained by a larger

coverage of this database (Michels and Schmoch 2012), numerous studies consider that an

increase of research activity can be linked to a growing number of scientific publications

(Gupta et al. 1997). The increase of EU27 F&V publications is higher than that of world

F&V publications, suggesting that this field of research is very active in EU27 countries, in

contrast with the USA.

We identified the main organisations in terms of F&V publications in the EU27 and the

USA which are structuring the F&V research landscape. Depending on the country, F&V

research is performed by universities and/or research organisations.

We identified the F&V species studied by the main institutions in the EU27 and the

USA. Numerous papers deal with species which are studied for both their agronomic

interest and as model plants, such as apple, tomato and potato. Several institutions conduct

studies on species with a high regional economical weight, such as Citrus in Florida (USA)

and Valencia (Spain). These findings highlight the link between research and stakeholders

in agricultural production, as was pointed out in Germany by Dalla Via and Baric (2012).

Like numerous bibliometric studies, we explored research fields through WoS� cate-

gories. Our study shows that F&V research is at the convergence of several different

disciplines, topics and applied fields, including Plant Sciences, Horticulture, Agronomy

and Food Science and Technology.

Our data confirm the internationalization of research collaboration. Almost 15.5 % of

the F&V publications were produced through international collaborations, but this share is

higher for the EU27 and the USA at respectively 26.2 and 23.8 %. Collaboration between

EU27 and American institutions is strong; the two are each other’s major scientific partner

in the F&V field. The EU27 promotes international collaboration, but in the F&V field, our

data shows that only 10 % of publications involve at least two or more EU27 countries.

Mattsson et al. (2008) has shown that intra-EU co-publication patterns depend on scientific

research fields and has pointed out that agriculture and biology are among the research

fields with the least international collaboration.

The EU27 is opening up to the rest of the world, working not only with traditional,

large, advanced economies but also with emerging and developing countries. With a high

level of international collaborations, the EU27 plays an active role in global F&V scientific

research.

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Conclusion

Our study provides a map of fruit and vegetable research based on the scientific publi-

cations indexed in the WoS� from 2000 to 2009. We chose to compare the EU27 with the

USA. We observed similarities and specialities in the fields and species studied and

highlighted the importance of scientific collaborations between the EU27 and USA. We

identified some significant points in F&V research where the EU27 predominate in terms

of F&V papers, followed by the USA. We can therefore conclude that the progressive

consolidation of the 27 European countries in the EU during the first decade of the 21st

century has had an effect on the development of intra-EU partnerships, including both EU

member countries and joint international programs. Existing scientific forces also are an

important element in decision support tools in terms of a potential mobilization of orga-

nizations sufficiently large to induce shifts in research topics, resources used, and partic-

ipation in major international programs.

Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Christian Huyghe (Agriculture Scientific Direction,French National Institute for Agricultural Research (Inra)) for his encouragements and effective search forsources of funding.

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