A global exploratory comparison of country self-citations 1996-2019

Abstract

Self-citations are a key topic in evaluative bibliometrics because they can artificially inflate citation-related performance indicators. Recently, self-citations defined at the largest scale, i.e., country self-citations, have started to attract the attention of researchers and policymakers. According to a recent research, in fact, the anomalous trends in the country self-citation rates of some countries, such as Italy, have been induced by the distorting effect of citation metrics-centered science policies. In the present study, we investigate the trends of country self-citations in 50 countries over the world in the period 1996-2019 using Scopus data. Results show that for most countries country self-citations have decreased over time. 12 countries (Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Malaysia, Pakistan, Romania, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Ukraine), however, exhibit different behavior, with anomalous trends of self-citations. We argue that these anomalies should be attributed to the aggressive science policies adopted by these countries in recent years, which are all characterized by direct or indirect incentives for citations. Our analysis confirms that when bibliometric indicators are integrated into systems of incentives, they are capable of affecting rapidly and visibly the citation behavior of entire countries.

The Increasing Authorship trend in Neuroscience: A scientometric analysis across 11 countries

“…Future studies should also extend this analysis beyond the G10 countries as done by Baccini and Petrovich (2023) in the study of self-citations. Indeed, Baccini et al (2023) demonstrated that Italy is the sole G10 country experiencing a recent surge in self-citations diverging from the other countries since 2010.…”

“…Future studies should also extend this analysis beyond the G10 countries as done by Baccini and Petrovich (2023) in the study of self-citations. Indeed, Baccini et al (2023) demonstrated that Italy is the sole G10 country experiencing a recent surge in self-citations diverging from the other countries since 2010. The year 2010 marks the initiation of a government reform (Law 240/2010) in the Italian university system when algorithms were introduced to reward researchers based on the number of citations they received.…”

“…We should ask whether an increase in the number of authors can be considered as the response of some researchers to an evaluation system that is increasingly reliant on numerical indicators, as proposed by Baccini et al (2023), which does not correct for the number of authors.…”

“…Since the late 1980s, numerous European and non-European countries have implemented national systems to monitor, assess, and evaluate the research performance of their scientific workforce (Hicks, 2012; Baccini et al, 2019, Baccini & Petrovich, 2023). A prominent feature of these research evaluation systems is the emphasis on quantitative indicators, recognized as pivotal science policy tools (Ingwersen & Larsen, 2014).…”

The increasing authorship trend in neuroscience: A scientometric analysis across 11 countries

“…Since the late 1980s, numerous European and non-European countries have implemented national systems to monitor, assess, and evaluate the research performance of their scientific workforce ( Hicks, 2012 , Baccini et al, 2019 , Baccini and Petrovich, 2023 ). A prominent feature of these research evaluation systems is the emphasis on quantitative indicators, recognized as pivotal science policy tools ( Ingwersen & Larsen, 2014 ).…”