Bibliometric analysis of competitive research project results

The outcomes of the first stage of a study dedicated to the development and use of methods for assessing the results of projects supported by a science foundation are presented. The initial empirical data were an array of nanoscience and nanotechnology projects supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research in the competitions of 2008 and 2009 and an array of papers that were prepared based on the results of those projects and registered in the Web of Science. The analysis was based on traditional bibliometric indicators and the indicators that had been proposed earlier by the authors of this article. The dependences of the formal characteristics of the arrays of papers on the stages of projects were discovered and the thematic structure of the arrays of projects and papers was determined. The approach “from a project to papers, from papers to projects “related” by common (joint) papers, from the related projects to other papers on these projects, and so on” was proposed. This approach makes it possible to identify a network of interrelated projects and foundations. Using this approach, numerous examples were found when the same papers were supported within different related projects of the same and/or other (domestic and foreign) foundations and the time distribution of the entire array of projects (including related) was obtained.