Pesquisa sobre microplástico dispara no Brasil

In six years (2017 to 2022), the number of research studies in Brazil on “microplastics” increased by 560%. The theme is part of a universe of more than eight thousand articles on oceans published by Brazilian institutions in the period. The data is contained in an unprecedented report released on Monday (5) by scientific publisher Elsevier with Bori. The document inaugurates the partnership between Elsevier and Bori to periodically analyze data from Brazilian scientific production and make it available to journalists.

The research maps Brazil's scientific production on the oceans, from 2017 to 2022, using the Scopus and SciVal tools, the latter developed by Elsevier, which maps scientific publications in public documents used in decision-making around the world. The idea is to understand the focus that Brazilian science gives to Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14), “Life below water”, of the United Nations (UN), since Brazil has one of the largest coastal zones in the world , with 8 thousand kilometers of continuous coastline.

The document shows that, from 2012 to 2021, there was a growth of 12% per year in Brazilian publications on Oceans. In addition to the “microplastic” theme, the themes “seashore”, “aquaculture” and “Oreochromis Niloticus” (tilapia) make up the list of most relevant themes in articles produced by Brazilian researchers related to SDG 14. Despite From appearing in 2,000 (seashore), 1,230 (aquaculture) and 562 (Oreochromis Niloticus) articles, the reference to these themes has decreased – especially since 2021.

The possibility of relating the content of scientific publications with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has brought important information about research targets in regions or institutions, according to Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, Senior Vice President of Research Networks at Elsevier. He notes that, in the Brazilian case, there is growth above the country's average in studies on SDG 14. “This growth shows how the scientific community in the country has chosen to focus its efforts on topics of great relevance for the advancement of knowledge and, at the same time, for the objectives of planetary sustainability”.

In 11th position worldwide among countries that publish the most studies on oceans, Brazil has research with international importance: around 40% of publications are the result of collaborations with foreign research institutions. Furthermore, they achieved a citation impact 2% above the global citation average.

This is the case of the article “Studies of the effects of microplastics on aquatic organisms: What do we know and where should we focus our efforts in the future?, published in 2018 in the magazine “Science of the Total Environment”. With Brazilian collaboration, from the Federal University of Goiás (UFG), and authored by researchers from the universities of Sweden, Aveiro, in Portugal, and Queensland, in Australia, the work is one of the five most cited global publications on microplastics. Its normalized citation impact is equal to 7.79, that is, 679% above the world average of citations, which is 1. Citation impact is measured by the number of times a scientific article is mentioned in other publications of the same type , discipline and year of publication.

The University of São Paulo (USP), the Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho (Unesp) and the federal universities of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Santa Catarina (UFSC) and Rio Grande (FURG) are the institutions that have published the most research on oceans in the five years analyzed, bringing together more than 3 thousand publications. Next come the federal universities of Paraná (UFPR), Fluminense (UFF), Pernambuco (UFPE) and Ceará (UFC). The majority of studies are in the areas of agriculture (57%), environmental sciences (42%) and earth sciences (25%).

The impacts of research on public policies The data also gives a dimension to the impact of Brazilian research on oceans on public policies: 4.8% of the 8 thousand articles were cited and supported decision-making on ocean protection. Most of the mentions of the studies were made by the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), the European Union and the United Nations Environment Programme.