Are Soviet Scientists Publishing Abroad? Nyet Yet

With General Secretary Gorbachev and President Reagan scheduled to meet in Moscow this week, bets are on that the two leaders will be singing the praises of glasnost. But the policy of more openness (less censorship) has affected "only domestic media such as magazines and newspapers," says Thores Medvedev, an-exiled Soviet scientist, now at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. Indeed, despite the recent appearance of a number of prominent Soviet scientists at foreign meetings,

David Pendlebury

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An analysis of articles published by Soviet scientists in journals indexed by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) has revealed no significant increase in the number published in western journals between 1984 (before glasnost) and 1987. Only 17% (or about 5,100 out of 29,300) of Soviet articles surveyed in 1984 were published in non-Soviet journals (excluding English-language translation journals). In 1987 the number of Soviet articles published in non-Soviet journals was still 17% (some 5,700 of 33,400).

The accompanying table lists the number of Soviet articles published in eight high-impact international journals in 1981, 1984, and 1987. Even FEBS Letters, which attracts a large number of Soviet papers, published fewer in 1987, when viewed on a percentage basis, than it did in 1984. Physics Letters A and Physics Letters B showed small increases (about 2% each) in 1987 over 1984.

Soviet scientists are eager to publish their work in international ...

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