From academia to citizenry. Study of the flow of scientific information from projects to scientific journals and social media in the field of “Energy saving”

The Energy Saving sector is key to the development of countries due to its economic, social and environmental impact. At the scientific level, its importance is perceived in the support of different international funding agencies to finance research on this subject. In order to analyse the characteristics and impact of these initiatives, this paper examines the European projects into the Seventh Framework Programme on Energy Saving. Using a bibliometric methodology, the flow of scientific information from these projects to scientific publications is analyzed. Finally, in order to know the social repercussions of these research, the impact of the projects and publications on social media has been considered. Methodologically, a multiple linear regression model was developed to relate the variables from each information source and to detect the ones that contribute to the social media impact of scientific publications. The results show that the research activities in Energy Saving are concentrated in Germany, France, United Kingdom and Spain. In general, the main partners are companies and public research centers and no link has been found between the funding received and the size of the research consortia. As for the model developed, it has been found that the journal, documental type and international collaboration are the most significant factors for the impact of research in social media.