Impact of Ukrainian scientific publications and co-publications

 

In bibliometrics, the impact of scholarly works is typically approximated by the number of citations a published work receives. Readers should keep in mind that the impact in terms of average citations may vary greatly between scientific fields. Thus, comparisons should be done cautiously. A comparison within the same field but between different countries and/or over time is more plausible. A limitation to take note of is that the average citations for fields with few publications should not be taken at face value because they tend to fluctuate widely, e.g. if there is only one publication that has been cited 40 times and, later on, there is another one in the same field that has just 2 citations, the average citation drops from 40 to 21. Thus it may be sensible to exclude such cases.

 

Within the analysed period of 2003 to 2013, the average citation of a publication involving at least one author from Ukraine amounts to 3.7, i.e. each publication has been cited on average 3.7 times. The number of citations of publications that were solely authored by Ukrainian authors is quite low, namely 1.39 times. Works co-authored with at least one author from a foreign country are cited more often: 8.24 is the number of average citations for internationally co-authored works involving at least one Ukrainian author. Works co-authored with at least one author from EU28/AC are cited 9.48 times on average, i.e. 15 % more often than all international co-publications involving at least one Ukrainian author (again, on average).

 

When looking back at Figure 16 it becomes visible that Ukrainian co-publications with most of the twenty most involved countries are cited more than 10 or even more than 15 times on average. This is – at least to some extent – due to the fact that they have fewer publications than the overall Ukrainian co-publications and therefore the highly cited papers do have more impact on the average citation value than if there would have been more (co-)publications overall.

 

Comparing the average citations of the overall Ukrainian publications (for a list of average citation counts for the 15 research fields Ukraine publishes most see Annex 5) with the average citations of co-publications in the research fields with the most co-publication output, the following countries show especially high average citation counts:

 

· Ukrainian publications in Clinical Medicine have an average citation of 5.51, but Ukrainian co-publications are cited 16.1 on average. Ukrainian- Spanish co-publications are cited 61.57 times on average, Ukrainian- Italian co-publications 55.81 times, Ukrainian- Dutch co-publications 48.93 times, Ukrainian- Russian co-publications 44.15 times and Ukrainian- Belgian co-publications 44.87 times.

 

· Ukrainian publications in Physics & Astronomy have an average citation of 5.72, but Ukrainian co-publications are cited 9.18 times on average. Ukrainian- Finish co-publications are cited 22.93 times on average, Ukrainian- Canadian co-publications 22.17 times, Ukrainian- Swiss co-publications 21.61 times and Ukrainian- Belgian co-publications 19.04 times.

 

· Ukrainian publications in Biomedical Research have an average citation of 5.46, but Ukrainian co-publications are cited 11.6 times on average. Ukrainian- Swedish co-publications are cited 33.74 times on average, Ukrainian- French co-publications 30.57 times, Ukrainian- German co-publications 25.9 times and Ukrainian- Russian co-publications 20.68 times.

 

· Ukrainian publications in Biology have an average citation of 3.56, but Ukrainian co-publications are cited 7.7 times on average. Ukrainian- British co-publications are cited 17.5 times on average and Ukrainian- German co-publications 13.93 times.

 

· Ukrainian publications in Chemistry have an average citation of 4.72, but Ukrainian co-publications are cited 8.82 times on average. Ukrainian- Italian co-publications are cited 16.82 times on average and Ukrainian- British co-publications 16.31 times.

 

· Ukrainian publications in Enabling & Strategic Technologies have an average citation of 2.52, but Ukrainian co-publications are cited 6.2 times on average. Ukrainian- British co-publications are cited 12.52 times on average, Ukrainian- Spanish co-publications 10.71 times and Ukrainian- Italian co-publications 9.25 times.

 

 

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