Abstract

Introduction: The countries of Latin America have a common history in which they share languages, roots and traditions, and this is a major milestone in their unique way of progress. Objective: To characterise the communication patterns and impact of Latin American scientific output in the category “History and Philosophy of Science”. Methods: A bibliometric study was conducted where the documents belonging to the category "History and Philosophy of Science" from the period between 1996 and 2016 were analysed, using as tools Scival and Scimago Country and Journal Rank. Results: While the regional scientific output showed an annual growth, especially after 2009, this growth was less noticeable at a global level, which indicates the scientific community’s interest towards this type of studies. More than half of the documents were cited, with a citation average of 28 cites per document. More than 30% of the communications involved international collaboration. Different studies have proven that the works which involved collaboration had a greater impact, at the expense of their visibility. Conclusions: The analysis of the Latin-American field of History and Philosophy of Science is characterised by a sustained growth, with Brazil as its greater producer. The region has high indicators for scientific leadership and citation. They show their potential based on the recovery of the historical memory of Latin-American people in a new context related to the recognition of scientific heritage as an essential part of our people’s culture, economy, politics and society.