Publons Based Profiling of Turkish Reviewers and Academic Institutions

Abstract

Introduction: Publons is the most prestigious and well-organized platform that allows to evaluate peer review metrics. It also provides publication and citation data as it is synchronized with the Web of Science. There are socio-cultural ties between Central Asian countries and Turkey, and these countries can take Turkey as a model for scientific development. Therefore, it will be useful for Central Asian countries to summarize Turkey's Publons activities. In this study, we used Publons database to list the top institutions, researchers and reviewers in Turkey.
 Methods: Publons database was used to export the data on October 10, 2021. The top 20 researchers were identified in terms of the number of verified reviews. Additionally, the top 20 institutions were determined in terms of the number of researchers, number of verified reviews and top reviewers.
 Results: On Publons, 57464 registered researchers from Turkey were found (ranked 7th) and 484 of these researchers had top reviewer status (ranked 16th). A total of 175644 verified reviews were detected from Turkey-based researchers (ranked 16th) and of which 45835 were performed in the last 12 months (ranked 14th). Based on the total number of researchers, four institutions from Turkey were in the top 100 in the world rankings (Hacettepe University, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul University-Cerrahpasa, and Cukurova University). There were no institutions from Turkey among the top 100 in the lists created according to the number of verified reviews and top reviewers.
 Conclusion: Turkey has a considerable number of researchers registered with Publons. However, Turkey should follow a scientific route in terms of verified reviews. Turkey and Central Asian countries can create scientific collaborations and cooperative projects. Thus, Central Asian countries will benefit from Turkey's experiences.