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Cross-country differences in publishing productivity of academics in research universities

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Abstract

The main bibliometric databases indicate large differences in country-level scientific publishing productivity, with high growth in many East Asian countries. However, it is difficult to translate country-level publishing productivity to individual-level productivity due to cross-country differences in the size and composition of the research workforce, as well as limited coverage of publications in the social sciences and humanities. Alternative data sources, such as individual-level self-reported publication data, may capture a wider range of publication channels but potentially include non-peer reviewed output and research re-published in different languages. Using individual-level academic survey data across 11 countries, this study finds large differences across countries in individual-level publishing productivity. However, when fractionalised for English-language and peer-reviewed publications, cross-country differences are relatively smaller. This suggests that publishing productivity in certain countries is inflated by a tendency to publish in non-peer reviewed outlets. Academics in large, non-English speaking countries also potentially benefit from a wider range of domestic publication channels. Demographic, motivational and institutional characteristics associated with high individual-level publishing productivity account for part of the publishing productivity differences within and between counties in English-language and peer-reviewed publishing productivity, but not in total publishing productivity where such workforce characteristics only account for within-country differences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. LH Martin Institute for Tertiary Education Leadership and Management, The University of Melbourne, Level 1, 715 Swanston Street, Melbourne, VIC, 3010, Australia

    Peter James Bentley

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  1. Peter James Bentley
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Correspondence to Peter James Bentley.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 4 and 5

Table 4 Independent variable means by country
Full size table
Table 5 OLS results for square root transformed article equivalents (M7), English language (M8), and peer reviewed publishing (M9)
Full size table

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Bentley, P.J. Cross-country differences in publishing productivity of academics in research universities. Scientometrics 102, 865–883 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-014-1430-4

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