Page 4 - IDEA Studie 2015 Publikacni vykonnost intl

Study 12 /2015

An International Comparison of the Quality of Academic
Publication Output in the Czech Republic5

ŠTĚPÁN JURAJDA2), STANISLAV KOZUBEK3), DANIEL MÜNICH2), SAMUEL ŠKODA2)67

Summary

In the recent study Jurajda a Münich. (2015).8 we presented a field-by-field comparison of
Czech research publication output. This comparison of the relative strength of output by
research institutes in each field within the Czech Republic (CR), could not comment on which
Czech institutes are working at international level, and which lag behind their foreign
counterparts. It is possible, for example, that an institute that is not at the forefront of its field
in the CR may nevertheless be performing research at a standard comparable with
international competitors, because it is working in a field in which the Czech Republic is
performing very high level research. In this study we offer a first step towards comparing the
research output of Czech institutes on an international scale: we compare the publication
output of each research field, overall, in the Czech Republic with its international equivalent.
Our comparison is based on articles published between 2010 and 2014 which are included in
the Web of Science (WoS) database. The comparison includes eleven small and medium sized
countries, only one of which has English as its native language. Five of the countries are
European countries previously within the Soviet bloc, four are Western European countries
and two are non-European countries.
Unlike most similar international bibliometric comparisons, ours does not only indicate the
overall quantity of research publications noted in WoS, but also the quality of these
publications. This enables us to compare Czech research fields both in terms of overall output
and in terms of excellent output. We are also able to show how the international standing of
Czech research fields has changed over time.

5 This study was made possible by support from the CAS within its "AV21" Strategy. The authors would like to
thank ing. J. Kovařík for his help obtaining information from WoS.
6 Think-tank IDEA at CERGE-EI, a joint academic workplace of the The Economics Institute of the Czech
Academy of Sciences and the Centre for Economic Research and Doctoral Studies, Charles University in
Prague.
7 Institute of Biophysics of the CAS, v.v.i.

8 http://idea.cerge-ei.cz/files/IDEA_Studie_5_2015_Publikacni_vykonnost/IDEA_Studie_5_2015_Publikacni_vykonnost.html