Intellectual structure of geology research in China: A bibliometric analysis of the funded projects of NSFC

Reviewing the intellectual structure of discipline is an important issue in scientometrics. Traditionally, the intellectual structure is described based on the journal article, which is falling behind the research activity. This paper uses the funded project data to generate the intellectual structure of a discipline. The results can reflect the research activity timely. The geology discipline in China is selected as the empirical object. The 7619 funded projects during 2006 to 2017about geology from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) are collected. The empirical results indicate that the number and fund amount of projects has grown rapidly. Engineering geology is the largest sub-discipline. The China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), the Institute of Geology and Geophysics Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the China University of Geosciences (Beijing) are the top 3 institutes. The numerical simulation, Tibet plateau, and South China are the top 3 frequent keywords.