Comparative study of mapping scientific relationships of Iranian researchers in the field of infectious diseases and its pioneers

The objective of this study is to create a visual representation of the collaboration networks among authors, universities, and research centers, as well as international relations, and to draw a subject map based on the documents indexed in Scopus about infectious diseases in Iran. This is compared with the leading country in this field, the United States. The study employs a quantitative approach to applied research using scientometric techniques with an approach of social network analysis. Documents were retrieved through the search strategy that contained equivalent phrases of infectious diseases and had been contributed to by at least one Iranian or United States researcher. These included ۱۸۰۴ documents authored by ۸۸,۸۴۶ Americans and ۲۴,۳۷۹ by ۶,۷۹۰ Iranians. The findings revealed that ‘Roya Kelishadi’ from the ‘Isfahan University of Medical Sciences’ and ‘Endocrinology And Metabolism Research Center, Endocrinology And Metabolism Clinical Sciences Institute’ were the most prolific Iranian entities. However, they were ranked differently regarding the number of citations. ‘Peter J. Hotez,’ as an author, and ‘Harvard Medical School,’ as an institution, were the most productive entities within the American scientific network. In addition, the link strength of ‘Farshad Farzadfar’ was the highest among Iranian authors, while that of ‘Ifeoma Ulasi’ was the highest among American authors. Furthermore, the United States, the United Kingdom, and India were identified as having high link strength in the Iranian collaboration networks. In contrast, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada were identified as having high link strength in American collaboration networks. The subject map visualization of Iranian research indicates that the field is broad but shallow, while the subject map of the United States is denser. The results of this study suggest that Iranian scientific policy makers of infectious diseases can provide a suitable direction for Iranian researchers by comparing with the United States.