Impact of country-specific characteristics on scientific productivity in clinical neurology research

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to identify the top 50 countries in the world in clinical neurology research and to use their data to assess the impact of a number of country-specific characteristics on scientific productivity in clinical neurology. METHODS: The SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SCR) web site was used to identify the top 50 countries in the world based on their total documents in clinical neurology. Using their data 5 country-specific characteristics and 6 productivity indicators (total documents, total cites, h-index, citable documents, self-cites and citations per document) were correlated and examined statistically. RESULTS: The number of universities in the world top 500 and the number of clinical neurology journals enlisted in SCR correlated significantly with each of the 6 indicators. The gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and the percentage of GDP spent on research and development (R & D) correlated significantly with 3 and 4 out of the 6 indicators respectively. The population size did not correlate significantly with any of the 6 indicators. CONCLUSIONS: The number of universities in the world top 500 and the number of clinical neurology journals enlisted in SCR appear to have a strong impact on scientific productivity. GDP per capita and spending on R & D appear to have a moderate impact on productivity that is influenced by the indicator used. Furthermore, population size appears to have no significant impact on productivity in clinical neurology research.