The journal “INRA Productions Animales” in the scientific production in the animal sciences and husbandry

Abstract

For 30 years, the journal “INRA Productions Animales” has published mainly review articles on all subjects concerning animal production to a broad audience of users of research results. This article proposes an analysis of the position of the journal and its evolution in the scientific literature at the international, European and INRA level using data from the "Web of Science ™" (WOS) database and the category "Agriculture, dairy and animal sciences" in which the journal has been indexed since 1997. Between 1997 and 2017, scientific production in this WOS category (9000 articles in 2017) has been multiplied by two. During this period, the number of articles published each year by INRA (about 250) and by the journal (between 30 and 35) has been stable. France is the seventh largest contributor to the WOS category behind the US, India, China, Brazil, Germany and Canada. The lexical analysis of all the references of the WOS category shows a great stability of the most frequently used terms, which remain dominated by production issues. However, the analysis of the evolution of the publications clearly shows the emergence and the rise of research carried out on livestock production systems, animal welfare and genomic selection, both in Europe and at INRA. In the end, the research conducted by INRA in the field of animal production, and in particular those disseminated by the journal INRA Productions Animales, correspond to research conducted at the European level.