WORLD SCIENCE IN 18 DISCIPLINARY AREAS - COMPARATIVE-EVALUATION OF THE PUBLICATION PATTERNS OF 48 COUNTRIES OVER THE PERIOD 1981-1992

In order to be able to develop indicators that can measure the scienti fic and technological productivity of a nation, it is helpful to have at one's command a prior purely descriptive global overview of how var ious nations stand with respect to each other with regard to world sci ence, i.e., to dispose of a framework for the elaboration of future qu antitative studies. ISI has recently made available a highly comprehen sive multidisciplinary database (over 6 million bibliometric entries f rom 1981 to 1992) that is founded on top-echelon journals and that can form the basis of such a framework. We have in the present study defi ned a publication pattern per nation that reflects its interest and po tential in 18 disciplines and compared the publication patterns of 48 nations by descriptive multivariate analysis, i.e., by measuring the d istance between nations in the n-dimensional system. Proximity is a si gn of similarity, distance of diversity. Three multivariate methods of distance measurement were used: a hierarchical classification, the di stance of each nation from the centre of gravity of the system calcula ted by chi(2)-metrics (typicality of behaviour), a bi-plot of the chi( 2)-distances of 46 countries with respect to two reference countries t hat highlights clusters of nations with similar behaviour. The resulta nt plots are open to interpretation by experts. We conclude that three factors, geographical proximity, culture, and economic development ar e the principal determinants of the publication patterns of nations.