India lags China in published scientific papers: Thomson ISI

New Delhi: Though India is among the top 13 countries in terms of published scientific research papers, it sorely lags behind China as revealed by the Science Watch team of Thomson ISI''s data.

Thomson ISI, also known as Thomson Scientific, a global leader in providing access to high-value, essential information for researchers and scholars worldwide for over 45 years.

Science Watch, a subscription newsletter, uses citation data from Thomson Scientific to provide rankings, interviews and reports on what it calls "today''s most significant science".

In its 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 per cent of most-cited papers worldwide.

Subbiah Arunachalam, a long-term campaigner for Indian research has revealed that:

  • India published 211,063 papers as against 422,993 by China (more than twice the number of papers as India''s).
  • India had 694 papers in the most cited 1 per cent of papers whereas China had 2,189 papers in this category (more than three times the number of such papers from India)
  • Only 0.33 per cent of Indian papers could get into the one per cent of most cited papers, whereas for China and South Korea the figure was 0.52 per cent.

"Apart from encouraging our scientists to do better quality work and providing them better facilities and a conducive environment, it is necessary to increase the visibility of Indian research publications, for example through placing our papers in institutional repositories or publishing them in open access journals," he argued.