| FIELD RANKINGS FOR RUSSIA | ||||||
| Data provided by Thomson Reuters from its Essential Science Indicators, January 2000-June 2010 | ||||||
| Field | Papers | Citations | Citations per paper | World average | % +/– | |
| 1 | Physics | 71,340 | 460,610 | 6.46 | 8.74 | -26 |
| %3D2 | Economics and business | 358 | 1,404 | 3.92 | 5.82 | -33 |
| %3D2 | Pharmacology | 585 | 4,613 | 7.89 | 11.79 | -33 |
| 4 | Engineering | 20,307 | 58,0 | 2.87 | 4.52 | -37 |
| 5 | Immunology | 435 | 5,031 | 11.57 | 21.13 | -45 |
| 6 | Environment and ecology | 2,896 | 16,489 | 5.69 | 10.80 | -47 |
| 7 | Space science | 8,682 | 61,786 | 7.12 | 13.78 | -48 |
| 8 | Plant and animal sciences | 6,467 | 24,207 | 3.74 | 7.41 | -50 |
| 9 | Neuroscience | 2,123 | 16,9 | 7.67 | 15.75 | -51 |
| 10 | Mathematics | 12,780 | 20,480 | 1.60 | 3.32 | -52 |
| 11 | Biochemistry | 10,309 | 80,230 | 7.78 | 16.67 | -53 |
| 12 | Microbiology | 3,358 | 22,020 | 6.56 | 15.30 | -57 |
| 13 | Materials science | 16,285 | 45,217 | 2.78 | 6.65 | -58 |
| 14 | Geosciences | 19,475 | 72,355 | 3.72 | 9.26 | -60 |
| %3D15 | Computer sciences | 3,036 | 3,900 | 1.28 | 3.53 | -64 |
| %3D15 | Clinical medicine | 12,669 | 56,066 | 4.43 | 12.46 | -64 |
| 17 | Chemistry | 59,038 | 201,015 | 3.40 | 10.74 | -68 |
| 18 | Molecular biology | 5,982 | 44,368 | 7.42 | 24.89 | -70 |
| 19 | Agricultural sciences | 1,909 | 3,629 | 1.90 | 6.74 | -72 |
| 20 | Psychiatry and psychology | 1,8 | 3,351 | 2.62 | 10.67 | -75 |
| All fields | 263,026 | 1,205,029 | 4.58 | 10.41 | -56 | |
The data above were extracted from the Essential Science Indicators database of Thomson Reuters. The database, currently covering the period from January 2000 to June 2010, surveys only journal articles (original research reports and review articles) indexed by Thomson Reuters. Articles are assigned to a category based on the journals in which they were published and the journal-to-field definition scheme used by Thomson Reuters. Both articles tabulated and citation counts to those articles are for the period indicated.
Russia ranks 11th in output, 20th in citations received and 34th out of 35 in citations per paper (among nations publishing 50,000 or more papers during the period) across all fields surveyed in Essential Science Indicators. The table above ranks fields for Russia by relative citation impact – that is, citations per paper for Russia in a field compared with the world’s citations per paper score in the same field. The country’s percentage above or below the world average is shown in the column at far right.
Clearly, during the past decade, Russia has recorded below-average performance in terms of relative citation impact despite its substantial scientific research base. Longer-term trends for Russia’s research publications are not encouraging: over the past three decades output has remained essentially flat, at about 25,000 to 30,000 papers per year, while world share has been cut in half (from more than 5 per cent to some 2.5 per cent now). The only positive sign is that while Russia recorded a score of 56 per cent below world average in terms of relative citation impact over the past decade, that score was almost 80 per cent below the world average in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a time of political upheaval. Since then, relative citation impact has improved steadily.
A more detailed summary of the current state of Russia’s research – and of the challenges facing its scientists – may be found in Thomson Reuters’ Global Research Report: Russia, issued in January 2010.
See http://researchanalytics.thomsonreuters.com/m/pdfs/grr-russia-jan10.pdf
For more information on the Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators database, see: http://science.thomsonreuters.com/products/esi