THE VISIBILITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE ROMANIAN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

The wide dissemination of scientific research results represents the means for outlining of the prestige and visibility of Romanian scientific research on the global or regional arena and for highlighting the performance and the contribution of Romanian researchers to the scientific progress in their specific scientific interest field. Evaluation of the scientific performances is a complex process, involving quantitative and qualitative methods and approaches. The evaluation of the publications and the ranking of the authors, of the scientific papers and of the research institutions could be a useful instrument for policy makers in order to enhance the management of research activity and for its efficient funding, taking into consideration not only the social and economic priorities of the scientific topics or the relevance of research projects, but also, the performance of the scientific activity of the research teams. Despite of shortcomings and of criticisms drawn by some authors, especially when it comes to the social sciences, the bibliometric assessments are a tool for profiling of the visibility and impact of the research activity and for allowing interesting and relevant international comparisons. Drawing on bibliometric data from the Scimago Journal and Country Rank, this paper aims to evaluate the position of the Romanian scientific research in international hierarchy, and the factors that influenced the current position of research activity from Romania