Science at the Vatican

We first point out that the Holy See and the Vatican City State are two different entities. The Holy See has established or directs several universities, academies and other institutes of higher learning, be it that most of them are related to ecclesiastical and religious studies. Best known among these institutes is the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Next we performed a bibliometric study, by searching for “Vatican*” as a country (CU=Vatican*) or as a city (CI=Vatican*) in the Web of Science (WoS). To the results of this query we added documents with (Vatican* OR “Pontifical acad*) in the address field and Rome as city. This search yielded 733 documents. This is the primary data source we investigated. The number of documents published yearly shows a clear increase, but citations are generally low. “Vatican” scientists (at least as covered by the WoS) are mostly interested in astronomy and related physics, followed – at a large distance – by religion as a research area and medicine. It is well-known that WoS (and Scopus), as international databases, have a good representation in the natural sciences and medicine, yet they do not reflect the real situation in the humanities. As such the contributions of the Vatican in medicine, astronomy and related fields is probably correctly represented in this study. However, this statement does not hold for the humanities. Most pontifical academies have their own series of acta, scripta, studia selecta, etc., but these are not included in the WoS (or Scopus). Although the Vatican City State cannot be considered a major force in science, it does have its own niche and plays a preeminent role in the field of astronomy. Adding to this its unique position in religion and arts makes a bibliometric study of this small state quite fascinating