Citation Study Reveals Moscow As Leader In Research Paper Publishing

RANK CITY 1991 PAPERS PERCENT CHANGE 1981 TO 1991 1 Moscow 14,541 + 7.3 2 London 14,051 +11.4 3 Boston/Cambridge, Mass. 12,480 +18.4 4 Tokyo 11,582 +41.1 5 New York 8,551 + 6.8 6 Paris 7,964 +11.4 7 Los Angeles 6,601 +13.6 8 Bethesda, Md. 6,233 +13.3 9 Philadelphia 6,183 +19.0 10 Osaka, Japan 5,408 +57.3 11 Washington, D.C. 5,388 + 1.4 12 Chicago 5,174 - 0.9 13 Baltimore 4,933 +44.7 14 Houston 4,911 +27.9 15 San Diego/La Jolla, Calif 4,740 +32.3 16 Stanford/Palo Alto, Calif 4,201 +16.3 17 Seattle 4,055 +22.8 18 Berlin 4,040 +15.0 19 Ann Arbor, Mich. 3,907 +43.9 20 Montreal 3,895 +41.3 21 Toronto 3,887 +32.2 22 Cambridge, U.K. 3,850 +30.4 23 San Francisco 3,773 +20.2 24 Kyoto, Japan 3,679 +43.0 25 Oxford, England 3,597 +47.1 SOURCE: Science Watch/ISI's Science Citation Index, 1991 That Moscow has remained so strong in its research paper output-- at least through the end of 1991--is perhaps attributable to the strict centralization of scientific facilities in the Soviet Union. Although St. Petersburg may run a distant second, Moscow is where the vast preponderance of Russian science is done. Note in the accompanying table that no other Russian or former Soviet Union cities made the top 25, while the United States had 14 cities, the United Kingdom and Japan each had three, and Canada had two cities on the list. In its analysis, Science Watch also compared each of the 25 cities' scientific publication output with its 1981 record. It found that the Japanese city of Osaka, while ranking 10th on the 1991 list, had made the largest gain among the leading cities in productivity during the 1980s--its total of 5,408 papers was up by 57.3 percent over its 1981 total. Following is the Science Watch report, published originally in the newsletter's December 1992 edition, and presented here with the permission of Science Watch and ISI. Science Watch surveyed all papers indexed in the Philadelphia- based Institute for Scientific Information's (ISI's) Science Citation Index during 1991 and determined the 25 cities that produced the most papers. For these 25, Science Watch calculated the percentage increase in their output of research reports from 1981 to 1991. Production of most things in Moscow has been falling lately, but scientific papers seem the exception. Moscow turned out the greatest number of papers worldwide in 1991--nearly 15,000 of them. Close behind was London, with just over 14,000. Boston/Cambridge, Mass., came in third, Tokyo was fourth, and New York took fifth place. In this analysis, Boston/Cambridge, as well as San Diego/La Jolla, Calif., and Stanford/Palo Alto, Calif., were treated as single municipalities, although, speaking legally, they are, of course, separate entities. Science Watch decided that if two cities had contiguous borders, the two should be counted together. City boundaries are, after all, artificial units of division when it comes to scientific research. Regions are no less artificial but are perhaps even harder to define. Of the 25 areas identified as the top producers, 14 are U.S. cities, three are British, three are Japanese, two are Canadian, and one each is located in Russia, France, and Germany. In terms of growth, the rising star among the nations represented is Japan. Papers from Osaka increased 57.3 percent from 1981 to 1991, while those from Kyoto rose 43.0 percent and those from Tokyo shot up 41.1 percent during the decade. Other big movers among the group were Oxford, England (+47.1 percent), Baltimore (+44.7 percent), Ann Arbor, Mich. (+43.9 percent), and Montreal (+41.3 percent). Finally, the skewed distribution of this data set should be noted. These 25 cities account for approximately one out of every four research papers indexed by ISI in 1991. This illustrates the impressive concentration of scientific activity on the planet in a very small number of locations.

Citation Study Reveals Moscow As Leader In Research Paper Publishing

The Scientist Staff

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