Brazil’s scientific production in mathematics: Contribution to mainstream science (2002-2011)

This research aims to conduct a diachronic study of the scientific production in the mathematics area with the presence of Brazilian researchers, based on Scopus from 2002 to 2011, identifying its impact on the international scientific community. Moreover, the study highlights the major journals in mathematics where these publications were disseminated, the most productive Brazilian institutions in this set of scientific publications, the main Brazilian partner countries in mathematics studies and visualizes the international network of scientific collaboration in which the country participates. Totally 12,240 articles with Brazilian authors were collected in the studied period. For each year, the annual growth rate of Brazilian scientific production in the area was calculated. The Brazilian scientific collaboration network with its main collaborators was visualized using the software Ucinet. It was observed that the Brazilian scientific production in the area presented a positive annual growth rate in medium and long term. Brazil’s mathematics research tends to have a significant impact and visibility internationally. The most productive Brazilian institutions have graduate programs and most are public universities. A significant part of Brazilian production in mathematics area was developed in international scientific collaboration.