The Scientific Impact Derived From the Disciplinary Profiles

The disciplinary profiles of the mean citation rates across 22 research areas were analyzed for 107 countries/territories that published at least 3,000 papers that exceeded the entrance thresholds for the Essential Science Indicators (ESI; Clarivate Analytics) during the period from January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2019. The matrix of pairwise differences between any two profiles was analyzed with a non-metric multidimensional scaling (MDS) algorithm, which recovered a two-dimensional geometric space describing these differences. These two dimensions, Dim1 and Dim2, described 5,671 pairwise differences between countries' disciplinary profiles with a sufficient accuracy (stress = 0.098). A significant correlation (r = 0.81, N = 107, p < 0.0001) was found between Dim1 and the Indicator of a Nation's Scientific Impact (INSI), which was computed as a composite of the average and the top citation rates. The scientific impact ranking of countries derived from the pairwise differences between disciplinary profiles seems to be more accurate and realistic compared with more traditional citation indices.