ASEAN nations ranked by total citations

The 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), listed above, are here ranked by the total number of citations to their research papers in the sciences and social sciences, as indexed by Thomson Reuters, during the period January 2000 to June 2010. There is a wide gap among these nations in terms of publications and citations: the 10 seem to divide themselves into three or perhaps four groups in terms of output and impact. The most prolific of the Asean group – Singapore – accounts for a 0.63 per cent world share (based on some 9.4 million papers recorded for the period).

Singapore also stands out in terms of the number and percentage of highly cited papers it produces. Highly cited papers are defined as those in the top 1?per cent by citations according to their field and year of publication. Thus, any nation with a more than 1 per cent share of its output recognised as highly cited signals superior performance. Singapore, Indonesia and Cambodia exceed expectations according to this measure, although Cambodia achieves this on the basis of a modest output.

A citations-per-paper figure (citation impact) for each nation is also presented and may

be compared with the world average of 10.41. Since this measure represents a mixture of all fields, and each field exhibits a different average rate of citation, it is only a general guide to research influence, and it may be affected if a nation concentrates output in one or more fields with a higher or a lower average citation impact. For more information on the Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators database, see http://science.thomsonreuters.com/products/esi