ITT2001(4): Indian Scientific Literature in Science Citation Index: A Report

National Institute of Science, Technology & Development Studies
K.S. Krishnan Marg, Pusa Gate, New Delhi - 110 012
Modified by the Editor

Depicts the coverage of Indian scientific literature by Science Citation Index database during the years 1990, 1994, 1997, 1998, 1999. Shows percentage-wise distribution of papers according to disciplines, states, and sectors. Also highlights features of institutional output according to disciplines and India's collaboration scenario with foreign countries.

KEYWORDS: India, Scientific literature, Science Citation Index, Collaboration.

The figures given in this report are from an ongoing bibliometric study of Indian science based on all 57,123 papers indexed in the Science Citation Index (SCI) in 1990, 1994, 1997, 1998 and 1999. The SCI very selectively indexes the bibliographic details of papers published all over the world, in three to four thousand international mainstream journals in science every year. It also subsequently records the citations received by these papers. The objective of present study is to examine trends in the output of Indian scientific papers at the national, state, sectoral and institutional levels, and the nature of collaboration patterns in the 1990's. A search with `INDIA' in the address field was used to identify papers with at least one author from India. These are then treated as the scientific output from India. Clearly this study is only partial as there are a very large number of Indian journals numbering more than six hundred not indexed in SCI.

In the 1980's there had been an apparent fall in the number of Indian papers in SCI. Although some have interpreted this as a decline in Indian science, in reality, this was only an effect of the reduced coverage of Indian journals in SCI between 1970 to the mid-1980's, and not due to any real decline in productivity. The number of Indian journals indexed in SCI fell from about 40 at the end of the 1970's to 10-11 in 1986, and remained constant thereafter. The deletion of these journals, containing largely Indian papers, caused a significant reduction in the apparent Indian output as recorded in SCI. The number of papers from India in other international journals has steadily increased [1].

In the present study, we find that the output and the average impact factor of Indian papers has increased in the 1990's (Table 1), and that the increase in impact has been statistically significant for a sample of data [2].

Table 1 portrays the scenario of Indian contributions within the canvass of Science Citation Index (SCI). It can be seen that the coverage of world literature by SCI is increasing over the years commensurate with the coverage of world journals. The coverage of papers increased from 590, 841 in 1990 to 785,222 in 1999, and of world journals increased from 3,192 in 1990 to 3,633 in 1999. In terms of the number of Indian papers, the coverage shows an increase from 10,103 papers in 1990 to 12,521 papers in 1999. On the other hand, percentage-wise, the coverage of Indian literature is diminishing. It came down from 1.71 per cent in 1990 to 1.48 per cent in 1997, thereafter slightly increased to 1.59 per cent in 1999. SCI covers an incredibly low number of Indian journals, less than a dozen (10 during 1997 to 1999), out of some 600. Hence, the negligibly small coverage of Indian papers published in Indian journals ranged from 1191 in 1997 to 1513 in 1999. The coverage of Indian journals vis-à-vis world journals, however, has declined from 0.9 percent in 1990 to 0.5 per cent in 1999.

The journal quality is used as an indicator of the quality of papers, and no attempt has been made to determine the actual citations received by the papers. We have, however, indicated the expected citations vs. the observed citations for different disciplines. The terms used, e.g., impact factor, expected and observed citations are defined in the next section. Impact factor values have been taken from the Journal Citation Reports [3].

The fields of science have been demarcated by classifying journals into major disciplinary groups. Indian output in any discipline is then obtained by counting the number of Indian papers in them (Table 2). Due to the inherent disciplinary spread and overlap in journal contents, some misclassification of papers may have resulted from this. Classification of data using other classification schemes are possible and may lead to slightly different figures. Average impact factor of Indian papers at the level of the disciplines has been indicated. As there is a variation in the citation practices (and therefore of the impact factors) in different disciplines, a direct comparison of the impact of papers in different disciplines is often not desirable. For example, the impact factors of journals and papers in the life sciences are much higher than in mathematics all over the world.

Institutional output in fourteen different disciplines for the five years has been shown in rank order of output for 1999 (Table 3). All institutes, which cumulatively contribute up to 80% of the output in any discipline, have been included in the Table.

# We note that the extent of institutional collaboration does not vary significantly between disciplines.

# The concentration of output varies considerably between disciplines, the productivity being more concentrated in the major institutes in the case of physics (col.7). Only for physics this value is lower than the theoretical norm provided by the 80-20 Rule, which predicts that about 20% of institutes would be expected to produce 80% of the papers.

The state-wise distribution of papers in terms of percentage is given in Table 4. Sectoral output and impact have been determined by classifying institutions into appropriate sectors, e.g., government, academic, etc. [4] and aggregating their output and impact (Table 5).

The medical, engineering and agricultural sectors have been shown separately. Engineering Sector combines output from IIT's & engineering & technological institutes; Medical Sector combine output from ICMR, MHFW, hospitals & medical colleges; and Agricultural Sector combine output from ICAR, agriculture universities, agricultural deemed universities, agricultural colleges & state agricultural units

Foreign collaboration has been determined by the number of papers co-authored with scientists from different countries. The countries with which India has collaborations have been alphabetically listed in Table 6. Again, due to several papers with authors from more than one country the total number of links exceeds the number of papers.

The impact factor of a journal in a given year is measured by the ratio of the number of times the citable items published in the journal during the two preceding years are cited in all journals covered by SCI database in the given year, to the sum of citable items published by the journal in the same period. The journal impact gives the Expected Citations to be received by a paper contained in it. The actual citations received by a paper, or Observed Impact, may differ from this.

1. Basu A. Are Indian scientists losing in the world publishing race? A refutation, In Nagpaul PS et al ,eds. Emerging Trends in Scientometrics. New Delhi: Allied Publisher, 1999.

2 Basu A. Science publication indicators for India: questions of interpretation. Scientometrics 1999, 44, 347-360.

3 Journal Citation Reports, Philadelphia, Pa: Institute for Scientific Information.

4 Directory of R&D Institutions. New Delhi: Department of Science &Technology, Govt. of India, 1999.

Science Citation Index	1990	1994	1997	1998	1999
World Papers in SCI	590841	681545	745819	770591	785222
Indian Papers in SCI	10103	11314	11067	12128	12521
Percentage	1.71	1.66	1.48	1.57	1.59
Average Impact Factor	1.22	1.36	1.39	1.58	1.52
Papers in Indian Journals	1413	1383	1191	1299	1513
Percentage of Indian SCI Papers in Indian Journals	14.0	12.2	10.8	10.7	12.0
Source Journals for SCI	3192	3383	3453	3606	3633
Journals Used by Indian Institutions	1527	1706	1664	1799	1843
Percentage of World Journals Used	47.8	50.4	48.2	49.9	50.7
Indian Journals	13	13	10	10	10
Indian Journals as Percentage of Journals Used	0.9	0.8	0.6	0.6	0.5
International Collaboration (Co-authored Papers)	1040	1575	1743	2126	2251
As a Percentage of Total Papers	10.3	13.9	15.7	17.5	18.0
Collaborating Countries	69	92	94	99	112
Average Impact Factor of Collaborative Papers	1.81	1.96	2.11	2.24	2.15
Percentage Gain in Impact Factor due to International Collaboration	4.9	6.1	8.2	7.3	7.5
Inter Sectoral Collaboration	948	1396	1601	1791	1972
Inter State collaboration	523	804	879	1029	1113
Inter-Institutional Collaboration	1219	1707	1958	2161	2403
As a percentage of Total Papers	12.1	15.1	17.7	17.8	19.2
Impact Factor of Institutional Co-authored Papers	1.31	1.33	1.39	1.48	1.50

Disciplines	Percentage of Papers from India					Average Impact Factors
Disciplines	1990	1994	1997	1998	1999	1994	1997	1998	1999
Mathematics	1.5	1.5	1.7	1.6	1.8	0.53	0.49	0.55	0.58
Physics	22.6	22.6	23.7	22.9	22.8	1.56	1.57	1.58	1.73
Chemistry	23.2	21.8	19.9	21.7	20.5	1.27	1.19	1.20	1.25
Biology	5.5	4.9	4.3	5.5	4.2	1.52	1.29	3.97	1.56
Earth & Space Sciences	2.2	2.8	2.5	2.1	2.3	1.01	1.23	1.41	1.43
Agriculture	4.4	2.8	3.0	3.0	3.1	0.68	0.76	0.82	0.84
Clinical Medicine	15.2	15.2	17.2	15.8	16.3	1.95	1.92	1.90	2.05
Biomedicine	8.3	9.3	9.4	9.4	9.5	1.97	2.08	2.34	2.55
Engineering & Technology	5.8	6.8	6.6	6.7	5.9	0.59	0.72	0.77	0.77
Computer Sciences	0.6	1.1	1.1	1.4	1.1	0.81	0.80	0.71	0.86
Material Sciences	3.8	3.8	4.5	3.6	4.9	0.78	0.71	0.85	0.88
Multidisciplinary Journals	4.0	4.8	3.9	4.3	5.1	0.39	0.44	0.67	0.68
Social Sciences	0.2	0.3	0.1	0.2	0.2	0.55	0.50	1.06	1.34
Environmental Sciences	2.8	2.2	2.1	1.9	2.1	1.00	1.28	1.79	1.10
Unidentified	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.3	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.16
Total Papers	10103	11314	11067	12128	12521	1.36	1.40	1.60	1.50

State	Percentage of Total					Average Impact Factor
State	1990	1994	1997	1998	1999	1990	1994	1997	1998	1999
Maharashtra	15.00	15.58	16.05	15.33	15.43	1.56	1.57	1.61	1.71	1.71
West Bengal	11.45	11.24	11.60	11.60	12.33	1.26	1.26	1.34	1.52	1.49
Delhi	10.40	10.74	11.04	11.66	11.39	1.32	1.54	1.52	1.93	1.70
Uttar Pradesh	14.46	12.29	11.13	11.30	10.79	1.02	1.18	1.25	1.32	1.38
Karnataka	8.97	10.44	10.82	10.32	10.74	1.27	1.47	1.48	1.76	1.88
Tamil Nadu	7.89	9.36	10.26	10.07	10.19	1.22	1.15	1.15	1.37	1.19
Andhra Pradesh	8.35	8.12	7.39	8.00	7.85	1.21	1.48	1.58	1.66	1.60
Kerala	2.81	2.78	3.46	3.03	3.23	0.96	1.12	1.11	1.12	1.30
Chandigarh	2.96	2.31	2.51	2.89	2.78	1.30	1.60	1.82	2.33	2.20
Gujarat	2.66	3.21	3.10	2.67	2.71	1.20	1.27	1.31	1.56	1.56
Madhya Pradesh	1.90	2.62	2.29	2.41	2.33	0.89	1.10	1.05	1.03	1.18
Orissa	1.60	1.83	2.18	2.17	1.95	1.20	1.34	1.30	1.28	1.25
Rajasthan	2.20	1.53	1.43	1.31	1.36	1.01	1.20	1.19	1.42	1.10
Punjab	1.67	1.41	1.03	1.45	1.34	0.86	0.94	1.15	1.42	1.09
Haryana	2.18	1.87	1.41	1.34	1.26	0.79	0.87	0.84	0.99	0.97
Assam	0.61	0.63	0.69	0.83	0.89	1.01	0.71	1.20	0.92	1.10
Bihar	1.15	0.98	0.74	0.72	0.83	0.80	0.98	0.75	1.11	1.26
Goa	0.66	0.65	0.57	0.46	0.58	1.20	1.05	1.15	2.26	1.05
Meghalaya	0.70	0.58	0.43	0.63	0.47	1.20	1.00	1.42	1.28	1.25
Himachal Pradesh	0.62	0.38	0.63	0.36	0.43	1.03	0.75	1.01	1.03	0.92
Jammu & Kashmir	0.76	0.56	0.45	0.48	0.36	1.33	0.88	3.01	2.17	1.41
Pondicherry	0.55	0.53	0.41	0.54	0.36	0.66	1.69	1.30	1.19	0.93
Manipur	0.27	0.17	0.11	0.11	0.11	0.79	0.60	0.98	2.71	0.83
Arunachal Pradesh	0.06	0.03	0.08	0.11	0.09	0.68	1.99	0.79	0.75	0.81
Tripura	0.04	0.07	0.05	0.06	0.07	0.55	0.59	3.16	0.85	0.87
Andaman & Nicobar Islands		0.04	0.07	0.10	0.07		0.69	0.46	0.62	0.77
Nagaland			0.03		0.01			2.78		0.48
Sikkim		0.01	0.02	0.02	0.01		0.52	0.58	1.21	0.61
Lakshadweep					0.01					1.38
Mizoram	0.03	0.02		0.02	0.01	0.34	0.38		0.52	1.03
Total	10103	11314	11067	12128	12521	1.22	1.33	1.39	1.57	1.52

SECTORS	Percentage of Annual Papers					Average Impact Factor
SECTORS	90	94	97	98	99	90	94	97	98	99
GOVERNMENT SECTOR	33.98	35.77	37.20	37.49	37.48	1.40	1.50	1.55	1.72	1.70
MAJOR SCIENTIFIC AGENCIES	27.89	29.66	31.04	30.82	31.39	1.39	1.46	1.52	1.69	1.69
Dept. of Atomic Energy	8.26	9.17	9.41	9.76	9.23	1.56	1.73	1.83	1.85	1.83
Council of Scientific & Industrial Research	11.10	11.35	11.28	10.78	11.53	1.27	1.33	1.40	1.57	1.58
Defence Research & Development Orgn	1.08	1.10	1.11	1.18	0.95	0.87	0.91	0.76	0.91	0.97
Dept. of Electronics	0.04	0.10	0.09	0.11	0.14	0.36	0.54	0.79	0.85	0.94
Ministry of Environment, Forest & Wildlife	0.19	0.26	0.30	0.29	0.33	0.67	0.61	0.67	0.82	0.80
Indian Council of Agricultural Research	1.86	1.34	1.52	1.66	1.80	0.72	0.73	0.80	1.04	0.89
Indian Council of Medical Research	1.34	1.33	1.19	1.25	1.14	2.27	1.65	1.34	2.13	1.70
Dept. of Biotechnology	0.21	0.47	0.41	0.43	0.39	2.25	2.89	3.08	4.46	3.16
Dept. of Science & Technology	3.82	4.54	5.74	5.37	5.89	1.52	1.45	1.58	1.74	2.04
Dept. of Scientific & Industrial Research	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.01					0.69
Dept. of Space	0.95	1.44	1.48	1.50	1.43	1.53	1.19	1.37	1.58	1.89
OTHER MINISTRIES/ DEPTS	6.04	6.02	6.13	6.57	5.98	1.44	1.70	1.68	1.87	1.76
Ministry of Health & Family Welfare	4.25	4.06	4.21	4.51	4.14	1.64	2.07	1.95	2.32	2.08
Miscellaneous Govt Depts	0.04	0.08	0.04	0.10	0.11	0.71	0.39	0.65	2.33	1.48
STATE SECTOR	0.78	0.80	0.97	0.83	0.94	1.25	1.20	0.88	1.03	1.59
ACADEMIC SECTOR	45.48	42.93	39.80	39.89	39.91	1.05	1.18	1.16	1.38	1.31
Universities	36.91	34.04	30.89	31.09	30.43	1.03	1.13	1.15	1.37	1.21
Deemed Universities	4.74	5.71	5.58	5.43	5.50	1.48	1.60	1.57	1.82	1.98
Colleges & Schools	4.00	3.17	3.40	3.44	3.64	0.78	0.98	0.95	1.30	1.03
Centres for Advanced Study	0.00	0.02	0.01	0.01	0.39		0.57	0.55	1.07	2.58
Management Instt.	0.04	0.09	0.04	0.05	0.07	0.68	2.20	0.24	0.57	0.99
IIT's	8.70	9.22	8.96	9.17	8.95	1.12	1.20	1.08	1.17	1.25
Engg. & Tech. Institutes	1.08	1.07	1.16	1.47	1.40	0.88	0.74	0.59	0.80	0.89
Hospitals & Medical Colleges	4.99	3.87	5.27	4.23	4.80	1.70	1.74	2.17	1.97	2.06
INDUSTRIAL SECTOR	2.55	3.11	3.39	3.23	3.00	1.80	1.56	1.69	1.77	1.60
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTES	0.78	0.81	0.72	0.71	0.62	1.33	1.22	1.95	1.83	2.22
MISCELLANEOUS INSTITUTES	0.39	0.51	0.70	1.05	1.04	1.87	1.98	1.67	2.99	2.09
PRIVATE ADDRESSES	0.11	0.24	0.13	0.23	0.18	0.73	2.78	0.81	1.92	0.87
UNIDENTIFIED	0.21	0.23	0.22	0.20	0.24	4.17	1.09	1.67	1.96	1.82
TOTAL (Papers)	10103	11314	11067	12128	12510	1.24	1.33	1.39	1.56	1.52
ENGINEERING SECTOR	9.78	10.29	10.12	10.64	10.34	1.10	1.15	1.03	1.12	1.20
MEDICAL SECTOR	10.58	9.26	10.67	9.99	10.08	1.75	1.87	1.99	2.14	2.03
AGRICULTURE SECTOR	5.12	3.41	3.43	3.30	3.70	0.72	0.75	0.81	1.08	0.97

Country	90	94	97	98	99	TOTAL	Country	90	94	97	98	99	TOTAL
Afghanistan	1					1	Lithuania			1	2		3
Algeria		1		1	2	4	Luxembourg		1			3	4
Argentina	4	3	14	23	23	67	Macedonia			1	1	1	3
Armenia		3	4	6		13	Malawi			1	3	4	8
Australia	31	59	51	82	81	304	Malaysia	1	7	10	27	70	115
Austria	5	14	12	10	14	55	Mali			1		2	3
Bahrain	3	1	1	3		8	Malta				2	1	3
Bangladesh	7	15	10	18	16	66	Mauritius		1		3	1	5
Barbados					1	1	Mexico	5	6	22	39	40	112
Belarus		2				2	Monaco		1			2	3
Belgium	11	18	31	36	39	135	Mongolia				1		1
Benin			1			1	Morocco		2	1		2	5
Bermuda	1					1	Mozambique			1			1
Botswana				3	3	6	Myanmar			1		2	3
Brazil	7	21	39	53	61	181	Nepal		3	4	3	3	13
Brunei		5		1		6	Netherlands	29	32	76	60	69	266
Bulgaria	7	7	31	29	34	108	New Zealand		11	8	10	12	41
Cameroon				1	1	2	Nigeria	11	10	3	5	2	31
Canada	74	122	108	90	99	493	Norway	4	7	6	12	9	38
Chile	3	8	6	7	16	40	Oman	1	3	1	3	1	9
China	19	22	49	72	75	237	Pakistan	3	4	1	3	3	14
Colombia		6	10	19	20	55	Panama			1	1	1	3
Congo		2				2	Papua New Guinea	2					2
Costa Rica		1	2	1	2	6	Peru				1	1	2
Cote d' Ivoire			3		2	5	Philippines	5	7	16	5	15	48
Croatia				1		1	Poland	6	14	18	42	49	129
Cuba			1	2	1	4	Portugal	1		3	9	3	16
Cyprus		4	26	26	24	80	Romania	3	7	32	33	29	104
Czech Republic	4	5	8	13	13	43	Russian Federation	25	52	74	90	70	311
Denmark	7	9	25	21	28	90	Saudi Arabia	2	3	5	5	5	20
Ecuador				1	5	6	Scotland	12	20	16	33	25	106
Egypt	3	7	9	12	6	37	Senegal					1	1
Eritrea					1	1	Seychelles					1	1
Estonia					1	1	Singapore	3	5	12	10	18	48
Ethiopia	2	3	2		4	11	Slovakia		4	8	8	8	28
Finland	5	14	34	45	36	134	Slovenia		1	1	5	4	11
France	52	109	178	233	215	787	South Africa	4	10	12	16	25	67
Gambia			1			1	South Korea		12	52	70	61	195
Georgia		1		1	1	3	Spain	21	27	54	76	58	236
Germany	144	408	542	630	736	2460	Sri Lanka		3		2	3	8
Ghana		1	2	2	1	6	Sudan		1	1	3	3	8
Greece	5	9	6	6	6	32	Suriname					1	1
Guadeloupe			1			1	Sweden	20	31	45	48	40	184
Guatemala					2	2	Switzerland	37	32	70	81	62	282
Guinea Bissau					1	1	Syrian Arab Republic	1	12	2	2	3	20
Honduras				1	1	2	Taiwan	2	10	18	39	60	129
Hong Kong	3	2	12	14	10	41	Thailand	4	8	1	10	11	34
Hungary	14	15	31	47	44	151	Trinidad & Tobago				2	1	3
Iceland			1		1	2	Tunisia		3		2	2	7
Indonesia	1		3	4	9	17	Turkey	2	3		6	3	14
Iran	3	2	9	9	6	29	United Arab Emirates		7	5	4	1	17
Iraq	1	2				3	Uganda			1	1	2	4
Ireland	4	21	16	14	19	74	Ukraine		1	2	3	1	7
Israel	3	8	18	20	27	76	United Kngdom	119	170	185	200	206	880
Italy	52	85	108	137	134	516	United Republic of Tanzania		2	1		1	4
Jamaica		1			1	2	USA	441	611	704	883	856	3495
Japan	73	125	135	201	239	773	Uzbekistan		4	4	5	3	16
Jordan	3	1	1	3	4	12	Venezuela			2	3	5	10
Kazakhstan		3	7	6	2	18	Vietnam	1	1		4	6	12
Kenya	1	6	2	7	7	23	Wales	9	7	10	18	22	66
Kuwait	4		3	1	9	17	Yemen		1			2	3
Lebanon		1	1		1	3	Yugoslavia	1		1	1	2	5
Lesotho		1				1	Zambia	1	2		5		8
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya	2	3	5		1	11	Zimbabwe	4		1	5	3	13

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The paper is a summary of the Report prepared under the National Mapping of Science Project, sponsored by NISSAT.

1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Discipline	National Output 5 years	Institutional Output 5 years	Total Institutional / National Output	Total Institutes	No. of Institutions Contributing a Single Paper in 5 years	80% Contribution to Papers in '99 by (% of institutes)
All Disciplines	57122	68244	1.2	2888	1305	12.7
Mathematics	922	1061	1.2	202	104	25.6
Physics	13106	16348	1.2	772	337	16.9
Chemistry	12204	13938	1.1	698	285	24.0
Biology	2772	3166	1.1	447	203	45.2
Earth Sciences	1353	1664	1.2	212	100	37.0
Agriculture	1842	2100	1.1	339	160	44.4
Clinical Medicine	9116	11039	1.2	1145	585	24.5
Biomedical Res.	5265	5078	1.2	579	247	28.2
Engineering	3639	4610	1.3	516	247	28.1
Computer Sci	611	721	1.2	169	97	46.5
Material Science	2360	2868	1.2	303	142	28.3
Environmental Sci	1255	1522	1.2	415	229	36.2
Multidisciplinary Journals	2360	2974	1.2	516	281	45.4