Introduction:

The productivity and quality of scientific production are a reason for concern among scientists, science managers and decision makers. Few recent studies are available evaluating scientific production in Bolivia, particularly in the field of international collaboration.

Objective:

Characterize scientific production and international collaboration in Bolivia in the period 1996-2018.

Methods:

Use was made of external evaluation indicators: citable documents, total citations, self-citations, citations per document, h-index and international collaboration provided by the databases Scopus and SCImago Journal and Country Rank for the period.

Results:

Bolivia ranks eighth in South America as far as scientific production is concerned. An obvious rise has occurred in the number of publications. In the last 22 years there has been an increase in the subjects of agriculture, medicine, the environment, astronomy and social sciences. On the other hand, it is the country with the greatest international cooperation among those with which it shares borders.

Conclusions:

Bolivian scientific production has experienced a sustainable rise in the period, and international collaboration has been outstanding.

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