Indicators of the scientific impact of nations revisited

Abstract

An improved Indicator of a Nation’s Scientific Impact (INSI), which, in addition to citation rates, takes into account how many research areas in which each nation has exceeded the entrance thresholds of the Essential Science Indicators (ESI, Clarivate Analytics), was proposed. This indicator provided a more realistic estimate of nations’ scientific impact, which was better predicted from the societal factors that are related to the quality of scientific output. The strongest predictor of countries’ scientific impact was good governance, while economic wealth and research and development expenditure played a relatively minor role in predicting research impact. We conclude that good governance is needed to create an environment, which can facilitate the translation of money invested into the production of high-impact scientific output.