Highly Cited Publications Output by India in Clinical Pharmacology during 2000-14: A Scientometric Assessment

Objectives: The main objective of this research is to identify highly cited papers in clinical pharmacology and to analyze their publication and citation data to study their citation characteristics, and understand what role contributing authors, participating research organizations as well as international collaborative countries play in Indian clinical pharmacology research. Design: The publications output of Indian clinical pharmacology papers published during 200014 were screened in Scopus database and highly cited papers, with at least 100 citations since publication, were identified and shortlisted for their bibliometric analysis. The statistics cover collabo ration across authors, institutions, foreign participating countries in the publication of highly cited papers. To assess comparative contributions of authors/ organizations, a new indicator, the Major Contributor Index (MCI), was used. Citation trends for all papers, as well as for top papers, are presented. Results: A total of 76 highly cited articles, constituting 1.45% share of world highly cited papers output and 0.75% share of India’s publications output, were published by India in clinical pharmacology output during 200014. This study covered only those papers that received at least 100 citations since publication. In recent years, topcited articles have reached their citation peak in the early years of their citation life cycle, but have shown a morerapid decreasing trend compared to topcited articles from past decades. These 76 highly articles have received 14059 citations, with an average citation per paper of 184.99. The leading Indian organiza tions participating in highly cited research papers were All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi (7 papers), Panjab University, Chandigarh (6 papers), Jadavpur University, Kolkata (5 papers), National Institute of Mental Health & Allied Sciences, Bangalore, Aligarh Muslim University, Annamalai University, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Sathyabama University, Guru Jambeshwar University, Hisar, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research, Chandigarh, Institute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar and Drug Research & Development Center, Kolkata (2 papers each).The leading authors were S.K. Bhattacharya (3 papers), J.K. Grover, S.P. Yadav, S. Garg, A.K. Singla, A.Garg, S. Ghosal, A. Bhattacharya, S. Khanna, A. Bhattacharya, S. Praveen and S.K.Sahoo (2 papers each). The leading international collaborative countries were USA (10 papers), Germany and U.K. (3 papers each), Japan, Russia Federation, Belgium and Canada (2 papers each). The MCI varied among leading organizations, as well as among individual authors. Conclusions: The output of highly cited papers by Indian authors in clinical pharmacology is still not significant given the fact that 208 authors contributed only one paper each once in 15 years, 11 contributed two papers each once in 15 years, and 1 contributed three papers once in 15 years. India still ranks 10th highest country with 1.45% share to the world output of highly cited papers compared to 61.41% share by USA. The quality of research in clinical pharmacology in India is though growing significantly over time, but there is very little evidence of corre sponding growth in publication rate of highly cited papers in India.