An enduring legacy: contributions of Royal College of Nursing fellows to nursing science.

BACKGROUND The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) initiated a fellowship programme in 1976 as a means of recognising outstanding registered nurses who have demonstrated a commitment to advancing the art and science of the profession and the improvement of healthcare. AIM To conduct a bibliometric analysis of the scholarly output of RCN fellows, thereby documenting their coverage, connectivity and contribution to the indexed professional literature. METHOD This study used a mixed-methods approach, analysing publicly available data to identify and report thematic and quantitative measures of the scholarship of fellows through the application of bibliometric analysis. RESULTS In total, 193 fellowships were awarded between the inception of the scheme in 1976 and 2019. Collectively, fellows have 9,336 publications indexed in Scopus and have accrued 131,408 citations resulting from 116,961 citing articles. Overall, 166 fellows produced one or more indexed articles. The 166 fellows engaged 9,908 co-authors in the production of this work from a total of 72 countries or territories. The work of the fellows covers 24 themes that include major healthcare priorities and a variety of clinical settings, as well as themes essential to the advancement of the nursing profession and the quality of services. CONCLUSION While there are limitations to this study in terms of its coverage of the indexed database, it has established a useful baseline of the published scholarship contributions of RCN fellows. The contributions made reflect the original intent of the RCN fellowship award - to acknowledge nurses who have demonstrated a commitment to advancing the art and science of the profession and the improvement of healthcare.