Which Countries Publish The Most Cited Scientific Papers?

June 2007

The May/June issue of Science Watch ranks 13 countries based on published scientific papers that reached the top one percent of most-cited papers worldwide from 1996 to 2006. The United States has produced more than 2.9 million scientific papers over this period, and took the lead in both the total papers among the top one percent, and the percentage of total papers among the top one percent.

Science Watch is a subscription newsletter that uses unique citation data from Thomson Scientific to provide rankings, interviews and reports on today's most significant science. In this study 13 countries are ranked based on both the volume and percentage of published scientific papers (in journals listed in Thomson Scientific's Web of Science®) that reached the top one percent of most-cited papers worldwide.

"This survey takes a different approach when ranking elite papers both overall and in specialty fields," said Chris King, editor of Science Watch . "We examined these papers on a global scale and identified which nations are leading scientific thought across all concentrations. Considering the sheer volume of papers published by the United States, it is no surprise to see it top the rankings of total number of papers among the top one percent," said King. "The fact that the U.S. also leads the rankings in percentage of papers among the top one percent demonstrates its tremendous influence on modern scientific thought."

Japan ranked second with 790,510 published papers or roughly one-third of the United States' publication output. England also had a profound influence by placing second highest in both total number of papers, and percentage of papers among the top one percent by having published 660,808, or about one-fourth of the United States' total papers.

Total papers in all fields from 1996 to 2006

Country	Total Papers, 1996-2006
United States	2,907,592
Japan Germany England France China Canada Italy Spain Australia India South Korea Taiwan	790,510 742,917 660,808 535,629 422,993 394,727 369,138 263,469 248,189 211,063 180,329 124,940

Total papers among top one per cent most cited in all fields

Country	Papers among top one per cent most cited
United States	54,516
England Germany France Japan Canada Italy Australia China Spain South Korea India Taiwan	10,090 9,427 5,967 5,662 5,301 3,825 2,804 2,189 2,155 929 694 550

Percentage of total papers in all fields among top one per cent most cited

Country	Percentage of papers among top one per cent
United States	1.87
England Canada Germany Australia France Italy Spain Japan China South Korea Taiwan India	1.53 1.34 1.27 1.13 1.11 1.04 0.82 0.72 0.52 0.52 0.44 0.33

Source: http://scientific.thomsonreuters.com/news/2007-06/8392239/