BRICS countries and scientific excellence: A bibliometric analysis of most frequently cited papers

Abstract

The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) are noted for their increasing participation in science and technology. The governments of these countries have been boosting their investments in research and development to become part of the group of nations doing research at a world-class level. This study investigates the development of the BRICS countries in the domain of top-cited papers (top 10% and 1% most frequently cited papers) between 1990 and 2010. To assess the extent to which these countries have become important players on the top level, we compare the BRICS countries with the top-performing countries worldwide. As the analyses of the (annual) growth rates show, with the exception of Russia, the BRICS countries have increased their output in terms of most frequently-cited papers at a higher rate than the top-cited countries worldwide. In a further step of analysis for this study, we generate co-authorship networks among authors of highly cited papers for four time points to view changes in BRICS participation (1995, 2000, 2005, and 2010). Here, the results show that all BRICS countries succeeded in becoming part of this network, whereby the Chinese collaboration activities focus on the USA.

Investigating Educational Research Articles (1980-2014) in terms of Bibliometric Indicators

“…This conclusion might have various reasons. There are similar findings in the literature (Bornmann, Wagner & Leydesdorff, 2015;Bauer, Leydesdorff & Bornmann, 2015). In addition, the USA has more journals, which accept educational research articles, than other countries.…”

Scientometric assessment of selected R&D priority areas in South Africa: A comparison with other BRICS countries

“…It must be pointed out that the focus of this paper is on the performance of South Africa in its priority areas, while the other BRIC countries are used for comparative purposes only. 6 Considering previous work, Bornmann et al (2015) found that the BRICS countries, with the exception of Russia, have increased their output in terms of most frequently cited papers at a higher rate than the top-cited countries worldwide. While that study did not have a specific focus on the areas as considered here, their analysis is in line with the findings presented in this paper.…”

“…Some studies have considered the scientific outputs (Bornmann, Wagner, & Leydesdorff, 2015), collaboration within the grouping (Finardi, 2015), and the comparison with other country groupings (Yi, Qi, & Wu, 2013). Additionally, studies where countries in the same grouping are compared are common practice; for example, studies have been done looking at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), EU27 and Association of South East Asian (ASEAN) countries.…”

Publication Productivity Pattern of Malaysian Researchers in Scopus from 1995 to 2015

“…The indicators namely as total numbers of publication, [52,53] citation analysis, [54,55] h-index, [56] g-index, [57] years of publication, [49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58] collaboration between countries [59] and others. Difference indicators can give difference outline and indication towards research.…”