On a New Approach to Comparative Analysis of Publication Activity of Countries

The article proposes a new methodological approach to comparative analysis of countries’ publication activities on the basis of the Scopus abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed research literature. Being supplemented with data on the average number of researchers in national academic systems, this approach allows calculation of such indicators as the average external citation index and the average self-citation index across all research areas and directions indicated in the Scopus indexed peer-reviewed journals. The obtained results make it possible to solve the problem of comparability of relative metrics of countries’ publication activities. The formulas proposed in the article for calculating coefficients of self-citation and external citation of research publications make it possible to compile rankings of countries in accordance with corresponding coefficients, in particular, in context of specific research areas. Thus, the study of the values of external citation coefficients for publications by Russian authors made it possible to identify 35 areas of scientific research that attracted the greatest interest from their foreign colleagues. Correspondingly, it is concluded that these areas have the greatest potential in terms of knowledge-intensive technologies development and ensuring technological leadership. The article uses data from the SJR portal (SCImago Journal & Country Rank).