Biol Cybern DOI 10.1007/s00422-014-0617-3 ORIGINAL PAPER Analysis of worldwide research in the ﬁeld of cybernetics during 1997–2011 Virender Singh · Alicia Perdigones · José Luis García · Ignacio Cañas-Guerrero · Fernando R. Mazarrón Received: 26 September 2013 / Accepted: 17 June 2014 © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014 Abstract The study provides an overview of the research activity carried out in the ﬁeld of cybernetics. To do so, all research papers from 1997 to 2011 (16,445 research papers) under the category of “Computer Science, Cybernetics” of Web of Science have been processed using our in-house soft- ware which is developed speciﬁcally for this purpose. Among its multiple capabilities, this software analyses individual and compound keywords, quantiﬁes productivity taking into account the work distribution, estimates the impact of each article and determines the collaborations established at dif- ferent scales. Keywords analysis identiﬁes the evolution of the most important research topics in the ﬁeld of cybernet- ics and their speciﬁcity in biological aspects, as well as the research topics with lesser interest. The analysis of productiv- ity, impact and collaborations provides a framework to assess research activity in a speciﬁc and realistic context. The geo- graphical and institutional distribution of publications reveals the leading countries and research centres, analysing their relation to main research journals. Moreover, collaborations analysis reveals great differences in terms of international- ization and complexity of research networks. The results of this study may be very useful for the characterization and the decisions made by research in the ﬁeld of cybernetics. Keywords Bibliometric analysis · Computer science · Cybernetics · Web of science · Research activity V. Singh · A. Perdigones · J. L. García · I. Cañas-Guerrero · F. R. Mazarrón (B ) Polytechnic University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain e-mail: f.ruiz@upm.es 1 Introduction The results of most of the research are disseminated through a process of written communication, in the form of scientiﬁc and research publications. Precise quantiﬁcation of scientiﬁc output in the short term is not an easy task, but is critical to evaluate scientists, laboratories, departments and institutions (Kreiman and Maunsell 2011). In the situation of high vol- ume of scientiﬁc production, bibliometric analysis has been extensively used to carry out overall analysis. Bibliometrics is a set of methods to quantitatively analyse scientiﬁc and technological literature. Bibliometric studies are systematically conducted to evaluate the relative impor- tance of scientiﬁc production in a speciﬁc ﬁeld. This approach provides a pivotal tool to interpret the temporary evolution and the geographical distribution of research on a speciﬁc topic (Ugolini et al. 2010). To know the status of research in a particular ﬁeld, the analysis of scientiﬁc publications is the most prevalent and at the same time one of most debated methods, particu- larly in relation to quality analysis (qualitative evaluation) rather than quantity (quantitative evaluation) (Rojas-Sola and Jorda-Albinana 2009). Qualitative assessment of scientiﬁc publications can be performed in various ways, being the most utilized the number of received citations and the impact factor (IF) published by the Institute for Scientiﬁc Informa- tion (ISI). Despite the many criticisms that the IF may have, there is no other system which is widely accepted by the sci- entiﬁc community and academic administrators (Rojas-Sola and Jorda-Albinana 2009). Bibliometric indicators can be used to take investment decisions related to R&D projects and to identify rate of change of the usage of speciﬁc technology, selection process of researchers, promotion of researchers and research cen- tres, etc. At the management and policy level, bibliomet- 123