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On the “scientometric decline” of British science. One additional graph in reply to Ben Martin

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Abstract

With respect to the issue of whether the scientometric measurement of “the decline of British science” is an artifact of the specific database and underlying assumptions in methods, I argue that there are fewer analytical objections against measurement by usingSciSearch Online than against other methods (based on the “fixed journal set” and “fractional counting”). The measurement of “international co-authorship”, i.e. a network indicator, should not be confounded with measurement of performance of a single nation. The time series for the different subsets of UK-publications, which have been proposed, are given. None of the indicators can be shown to exhibit a trend (in contrast to a drift). The hypothesis of a decline has therefore to be rejected.

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Notes and references

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  1. Department of Science Dynamics, Nwe Achtergracht 166, 1018 WV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    L. Leydesdorff

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Leydesdorff, L. On the “scientometric decline” of British science. One additional graph in reply to Ben Martin. Scientometrics 20, 363–367 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02017526

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02017526

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