Citation impact report

This report provides a short analysis of nine countries (Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda and Tanzania), at a national level, using a range of bibliometric techniques to assess whether their academic impact in the world, through citation metrics, is growing, with particular reference to developments over the last 10 years.

A number of key features (metrics) were used to assess the progress the nine countries are making towards increasing their impact, these were:  

• Productivity - the number of publications they produced
• Mean or average citation rate - the average number of citations received for publications
• Citedness - the percentage of publications which are cited and the percentage which are not
• International collaboration - the number of publications written with international partners
• Percentage world share - share of all the world's academic publications as indexed by Scopus

Taken at a broad level, the countries examined are making a modest, but steady progress, in increasing their influence within the global research community as measured by citation metrics used. Important country and regional specific patterns and trends are also clear in general terms and in specific areas of the research communication and proxy impact measures.

This report was prepared by Dr Michael Norris on behalf of INASP in February 2013 as part of the concluding review and documentation of the Programme for the Enhancement of Research Information.