A Comparison of Citation Disciplinary Structure in Science between the G7 Countries and the BRICS Countries

doi:10.2478/jdis-2018-0012

Abstract

Abstract:

Purpose: This study aims to compare the characteristics of citation disciplinary structure between the G7 countries and the BRICS countries.

Design/Methodology/Approach: In this contribution, which uses about 1 million Web of Science publications and two publications years (1993 and 2013), we compare the G7 countries and the BRICS countries with regard to this type of structure. For the publication year 2013, cosine similarity values regarding the citation disciplinary structures of these countries (and of nine other countries) were used as input to cluster analysis. We also obtained cosine similarity values for a given country and its citation disciplinary structures across the two publication years. Moreover, for the publication year 2013, the within-country Jeffreys-Matusita distance between publication and citation disciplinary structure was measured.

Research limitations: First, the citation disciplinary structures of countries depend on multiple and complex factors. It is therefore difficult to completely explain the formation and change of the citation disciplinary structure of a country. This study suggests some possible causes, whereas detailed explanations might be given by future research. Second, the length of the citation window used in this study is three years. However, scientific disciplines differ in their citation practices. Comparison between citations across disciplines using the same citation window length may affect the citation discipline structure results for some countries.^Practical limitations: First, the results of this study are based on the WoS database. However, in this database some fields are covered to a greater extent than others, which may affect the results for the citation discipline structure for some studied countries. In future research, we might repeat this study using another database (like Scopus) and, in that case, we would like to make comparisons between the two outcomes. Second, the use of a constant journal set yielded that a large share of the journals covered by WoS year 2013 is ignored in the study. Thus, disciplinary structure is studied based on a quite restricted set of publications. The three mentioned limitations should be kept in mind when the results of this study are interpreted.

Originality/value: Disciplinary structure on country level is a highlighted topic for the S&T policy makers, especially for those come from developing countries. This study observes the disciplinary structure in the view of academic impact, and the result will provide some evidence to make decision for the discipline strategy and funding allocation. Besides, Jeffreys-Matusita distance is introduced to measure the similarity of citation disciplinary structure and publication disciplinary structure. By applying this measure, some new observations were drawn, for example, “Based on the comparison of publication disciplinary structure and citation disciplinary structure, the paper finds most BRICS counties have less impact with more publications”.

Findings: The outcome of the cluster analysis indicates that the G7 countries and BRICS countries are quite heterogeneous regarding their citation disciplinary structure. For a majority of the G7 countries, the citation disciplinary structure tend to be more stable compared to BRICS countries with regard to the years 1993 and 2013. Most G7 countries, with United States as an exception, turned out to have lower values on the Jeffreys-Matusita distance than BRICS countries, indicating a higher degree of heterogeneity between the publication and the citation disciplinary structure for the latter countries. In other words, BRICS countries still receive much less citations in most disciplines than their publication output would suggest. G7 countries can still expect more citations than is to be expected based on their publication output, thereby generating relatively more impact than BRICS countries.

Key words: Citation disciplinary structure, Country, Bibliometrics

Ting, Yue, Yang Liying, Ahlgren Per, Ding Jielan, Shi Shuangqing, and Frietsch Rainer. "A Comparison of Citation Disciplinary Structure in Science between the G7 Countries and the BRICS Countries." Journal of Data and Information Science, vol.3, no.3, 2018, pp.14-31. DOI: 10.2478/jdis-2018-0012

References

[1]	Aksnes D. W., Leeuwen T. N. V., & Sivertsen G. (2014). The effect of booming countries on changes in the relative specialization index (RSI) on country level. Scientometrics, 101(2), 1391-1401.
[2]	Aurell E., &Ekeberg ,M. (2012). Inverse Ising inference using all the data. Physical Review Letters, 108(9), 090201.
[3]	Bongioanni I., Daraio C., & Ruocco G. (2014). A quantitative measure to compare the disciplinary profiles of research systems and their evolution over time. Journal of Informetrics, 8(3), 710-727.
[4]	Balassa B. (2010). Trade liberalisation and “revealed” comparative advantage, Manchester School, 33(2), 99-123.
[5]	Bruzzone L., Roli F., & Serpico S. B. (1995). An extension of the Jeffreys-Matusita distance to multiclass cases for feature selection. IEEE Transations on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 33(6), 1318-1321.
[6]	Bound K. (2008). Brazil: The natural knowledge-economy. DEMOS.
[7]	Daraio C.,Fabbri F.,Gavazzi G.,Izzo M. G., Leuzzi L., Quaglia G., & Ruocco G. (2017). Assessing the interdependencies between scientific disciplinary profiles at the country level: A pseudo-likelihood approach. 2017 ISSI Conference Proceedings. China: Wuhan University, 2017, 1448-1459.
[8]	Ding J., Ahlgren P., Yang L., & Yue T. (2018). Disciplinary structures in Nature, Science, and PNAS: journal and country levels. Scientometrics(3), 1-36.
[9]	Everitt B., Landau ,S. &Leese , M. (2001). Cluster Analysis (Forth Edition.). London: Arnold.
[10]	Gl?nzel W., Debackere K., & Meyer M. (2008). “Triad” or “tetrad”? On global changes in a dynamic world. Scientometrics, 74(1), 71-88.
[11]	Gl?nzel W., Leta J., & Thijs B. (2006). Science in Brazil. Part 1: A macro-level comparative study, Scientometrics, 67(1), 67-86.
[12]	Gl?nzel W., &Schlemmer B. (2007). National research profiles in a changing Europe (1983-2003): An exploratory study of sectoral characteristics in the Triple Helix. Scientometrics, 70(2), 267-275.
[13]	Grupp H. (1998). Foundations of the Economics of Innovation: Theory, measurement, and practice. Books, 30(4), 379-379.
[14]	Harzing A.W., &Giroud A. (2014). The competitive advantage of nations: An application to academia. Journal of Informetrics, 8(1), 29-42.
[15]	Julio C. R. P., Maria M. L. E., & Dirce, M. T. Z.(1998). Brazilian sciences and government funding at the state of Sao Paulo. Scientometrics, 43(2), 177-188.
[16]	Kaufman ,L. &Rousseeuw, P.J. (1990). Finding groups in data: An introduction to cluster analysis. DBLP, New York:Wiley.
[17]	King D.A. (2004). The scientific impact of nations. Nature, 430(6997), 311-6.
[18]	Kozlowski J., Radosevic S., & Ircha D. (1999). History matters: the inherited disciplinary structure of the post-communist science in countries of central and Eastern Europe and its restructuring. Scientometrics, 45(1), 137-166.
[19]	Li N.(2017). Evolutionary patterns of national disciplinary profiles in research:1996-2015 .Scientometrics, 111(1), 1-28.
[20]	Liang L. M., Havemann F., Heinz M., & Wagner-Dobler R. (2006). Structural similarities between science growth dynamics in China and in western countries. Scientometrics, 66(2), 311-325.
[21]	Radosevic S., &Yoruk, E. (2014). Are there global shifts in the world science base? Analysing the catching up and falling behind of world regions. Scientometrics, 101(3), 1897-1924.
[22]	Schulz P. A,& Manganote E. J. T. (2012). Revisiting country research profiles: learning about the scientific cultures. Scientometrics, 93(2), 517-531.
[23]	Salton G., &McGill ,M.J. (1983). Introduction to modern information retrieval. New York: McGraw-Hill.
[24]	Schmoch U., Licht G., & Reinhard M. (eds.) (2000). Wissens-und technologietransfer inDeutschland. Stuttgart: Fraunhofer IRB Verlag.
[25]	Shibayama S. (2011). Distribution of academic research funds: a case of Japanese national research grant. Scientometrics, 88(1), 43-60.
[26]	Raan A. F. J.V. (2003). The use of bibliometric analysis in research performance assessment and monitoring of interdisciplinary scientific developments. Technikfolgenabschautzung - Theorie und Praxis(1), 20-29.
[27]	Wu J.(2015). Distributions of scientific funding across universities and research disciplines.Journal of Informetrics, 9(1), 183-196.
[28]	Yang L. Y., Yue T., Ding J. L., & Han T. (2012). A comparison of disciplinary structure in science between the G7 and the BRIC countries by bibliometric methods. Scientometrics, 93(2), 497-516.
[29]	Yue H.J. (2008). Prediction and relative dynamic performance on field of research of China.Studies in Science of Science, 26(3), 530-538.
[30]	Zhu W.T. (2006). A study on NSFC’s interdisciplinary research funding system. Bulletin of National Natural Science Foundation of China. 20(3), 184-189.