Scientific portfolio analysis of a scientific area by a competitive position approach

International audience ; The bibliometric study presented in this communication was carried out in 2006 for an Advisory Scientific Committee organized by the 3 universities of Aix-Marseilles . This Scientific Committee was made up of scientists coming from other areas of France, from countries of Europe or other parts of the world. To help the Scientific Committee, the steering committee considered that it was necessary to propose a bibliometric study of the three universities' scientific activities. The bibliometric study was not intended to be an instrument for helping in the research assessment of the Aix Marseilles universities, but rather an instrument for helping in the strategic analysis of the three universities' scientific policy. Thus, the methodology employed for this bibliometric study was strongly inspired by strategic analysis methods carried out in companies. The collected data from the WoS were compiled in “scoreboards” showing the evolution of the production of the 13 scientific areas compared in each scientific field for the 6 periods of 4 years. To make the use of such scoreboards easier, relative indicators were computed and translated into graphs in order to offer a global view of the evolution of the Aix-Marseilles area positioning in the chosen scientific fields in relation to the activities of the 12 other scientific areas.