A two-dimensional approach to evaluate the scientific production of countries (case study: the basic sciences)

The quantity and quality of scientific output of the topmost 50 countries in the four basic sciences (agricultural & biological sciences, chemistry, mathematics, and physics & astronomy) are studied in the period of the recent 12 years (1996–2007). In order to rank the countries, a novel two-dimensional method is proposed, which is inspired by the H-index and other methods based on quality and quantity measures. The countries data are represented in a “quantity–quality diagram”, and partitioned by a conventional statistical algorithm into three clusters, members of which are rather the same in all of the basic sciences. The results offer a new perspective on the global positions of countries with regards to their scientific output.