Openness and transparency are essential to creating trust in the peer review process. With research integrity being the theme of this year’s Peer Review Week, we look at ongoing efforts that Clarivate is conducting, in collaboration with colleagues in the scientometric research community, to further open peer review. We also look at how far open peer review has come and what the future holds.

Peer review is an essential part of the scientific endeavor yet challenges exist throughout.

In its essence, peer review provides a checkpoint where research results are scrutinized by experts in the field, who in turn, provide their opinion on the validity and quality of the research. Peer review is a part of the service provided by researchers to their peers and is normally unpaid. However, with the exponential growth in research publications, journals are struggling to find appropriate reviewers for submitted papers. Since in-depth peer review is time consuming and requires attention to all aspects of a paper, many researchers cannot keep up with the growing number of papers they are asked to review.

This challenge, in and of itself, creates a fertile ground for authors and publishing outlets to skimp on the rigorous process of peer review.

Significantly cutting the number of reviewers, publishing poorly reviewed articles, or in certain cases faking the entire review process are some of the phenomena we witnessed in the past few years.

According to the Retraction Watch database, over 3,000 articles have been retracted due to fake peer review. Fake peer review can involve submitting fictional or real names of reviewers, with false email addresses that return to the authors or to unscrupulous editorial firms. New examples of this are occurring frequently, with PLOS ONE announcing in March it will be retracting more than 100 articles for manipulated peer review.

Such scandals reveal vulnerabilities in the peer review system and are certainly a growing problem for editors, publishers, institutions and database providers who are battling this phenomenon to ensure research integrity in science.

How open peer review addresses challenges in the peer review system

Open peer review, also known as transparent peer review, refers to the practice of publishing review reports and sometimes also the identities of reviewers. In recent years, there has been a large growth in the adoption of open peer review. The transparency offered by open peer review ensures that the quality of peer review, and also the quality of the paper under review, is made visible for readers of the paper. This enables anyone who considers building upon the paper to develop an understanding of strengths and weaknesses of the research.

Open and transparent peer review is not new. Publishers like Journal of Medical Internet Research, British Medical Journal, and BMC have put the concept into practice for over 20 years. While many publishers have continued to innovate in this area since then, widescale and cross-disciplinary adoption has been lagging. This is often due to real and perceived concerns about researcher attitudes towards the practice. There is also the complexities of building on top of existing journal technologies and workflows.

Transparent Peer Review

In 2018, Clarivate launched a new publisher service called Transparent Peer Review (TPR). This innovative solution brings openness to peer review by exposing a comprehensive peer review history including reviewer reports, editor decision letters and authors’ responses, all linked from the published article. Numerous studies and surveys over the last 10 years show that researcher attitudes toward open and transparent peer review, while still varied, are becoming more open to the practice. In 2018, Clarivate piloted TPR with Wiley to tackle the technical and workflow complexities, with a focus on:

• Providing a robust path to transparent peer review for any journal
• Requiring minimal work for a publisher to set-up transparent peer review
• Making the process as simple as possible for authors, reviewers and editors.

Publishers using ScholarOne as their journal submission system can use the TPR system. TPR originated with Publons, now fully integrated with the Web of Science, making peer review more visible and giving researchers recognition for their peer review activities. TPR has grown over the last three years and is currently used by 123 journals across 7 publishers, and TPRs are fully available in Web of Science for both subscribers and non-subscribers. See for example:

Web of Science Core Collection record with open peer review data:

Open peer review details:

And here is the full Web of Science record for this publication.

Usage of open peer review

We recently examined the usage of TPR to identify trends. After all, transparency is great, but are scholars actually viewing the transparent reviews? As of July 2022, TPR contained 19,277 articles: 17,986 with citation information (6,514 had zero citations), 19,214 with peer review report (PR) view information, of which 496 had zero PR views. The first paper in TPR was published in January 2018. Among those with TPR views, six papers accrued more than 1,000 PR views and 243 papers 100 or more views. Three papers received more than 100 monthly average views and 419 papers received 10 or more monthly average views.

The distribution of citation counts and peer review report views is shown below: The box plot presents the log-normalized distribution of citation counts (purple) and TPR view counts (blue) for the 19,277 papers with peer review reports available. The median TPR view count is 17, and the median citation count is 6. Overall, articles receive more TPR views than citations.

Figure 1: Distribution of citations and views by article

Source: Web of Science

The box plot shows the log normalized distribution of citation counts (purple) and TPR view counts (blue) for the 19,277 papers with peer review reports available. The median TPR view is 17, and the median citation count is 6. The lower rates for citation is expected, given it takes a longer time for papers citing these papers to get published. About 20% of total articles account for 52% of TPR views, and 49% of total articles account for 80% of total TPR views in the dataset. A similar skewed pattern is also commonly observed with citations.

Figure 2: Cumulative distribution of Transparent Peer Review articles and views

Source: Web of Science

We also looked at the data by publisher. Wiley, the pilot publisher for TPR, is the largest provider of TPR articles to date, in terms of both the number of articles and journals. There is only one journal by MIT Press (Quantitative Studies of Science). We calculated views per article to normalize for the large size difference among the publishers’ TPR articles. MIT Press is also the publisher with the highest number of PR viewers per article (48.77).

Statistics by publisher:

Source: Web of Science

To understand usage by the community, we analyzed the monthly page views for TPR articles from 2020 to May 2022.

Figure 3: Transparent Peer Review page views by time

Source: Web of Science

The trend of TPR articles published, along with average views per article, is shown below.  Overall, the total number of TPR views is increasing as more TPR papers are added from only 15 papers in 2018 to more than 9,000 papers in 2021, while average views per article has decreased with this growth. 

Figure 4: The trend of TPR articles published, along with average TPR views per article

Source: Web of Science

Publish Your Reviews initiative

Open or transparent peer review typically refers to the publication of reviews alongside articles published in a journal. In recent years, however, researchers have also started to publish reviews of preprints, partly to address the need for rapid peer review of COVID-19 research. A next step taken by some researchers, including one of the authors of this blog (Ludo Waltman), is to publish journal-commissioned reviews alongside the preprint version of an article. This new form of open peer review is promoted by the Publish Your Reviews initiative, launched recently by ASAPbio with support from a large number of organizations. Publication of journal-commissioned reviews has several benefits. It for instance offers valuable contextual information to readers of preprints, and it enables journals to reuse each other’s reviews.

What’s next for open peer review?

Near term, Clarivate is focused on opening Transparent Peer Review to any of the 8,500+ journals using ScholarOne. This includes standard options for TPR workflows as well as publishing additional peer review objects, such as files from the reviewer’s report or author’s response to decision letter. Clarivate is also exploring how open peer review content from other peer review and preprint systems can flow into the Web of Science, alongside the published article. The vision is for peer reviews to become a standard and discoverable part of the scholarly record across all disciplines. Now that peer review records are visible within the Web of Science, for both subscribers and non-subscribers, we expect to see more usage and engagement.

Thank you to all the peer reviewers

Peer review is a longstanding practice that is essential to scholarly publishing. It is the gold standard for ensuring quality and integrity in research and yet is almost entirely reliant on the voluntary contributions from researchers. Peer Review Week is about recognizing these reviewers and we want to thank everyone involved in peer review for the essential role you play in maintaining research quality.

Learn more

Publishers interested in implementing Transparent Peer Review for their journals can discover more about this innovative service. Researchers and students seeking education on conducting high-quality, responsible peer reviews can use Web of Science Academy, a source for free, online courses on the peer review process, as well as ethical publication and citation behavior. The course contains 7 modules that cover various aspects of peer review including specific attention to reviewing papers in a variety of disciplines.

Contributors

Thank you to all the co-authors of this blog, including:

Ludo Waltman, Professor, Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden University.

Erjia Yan, Associate Professor, College of Computing and Informatics, Drexel University.

Chaoqun Ni, Assistant Professor, Information School, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ann Beynon, Strategic Alliances and Engagement Manager, Institute for Scientific Information, Clarivate.

Josh Dahl, Product Director, Clarivate.

The post The current state of open peer review appeared first on Clarivate.

While the methods of conflict and violence have changed over the years, their devastating effects are still felt in force across the globe.

In his recent remarks to the UN’s Peacebuilding Commission, Secretary-General António Guterres said that two billion people – that’s one-quarter of humanity – live in conflict areas today. Guterres added that an estimated 84 million people were “forcibly displaced because of conflict, violence and human rights violations,” which is particularly relevant as the world watches the people of Ukraine flee Russian aggression. The World Bank also estimates that in 2030, if trends continue, more than half of the world’s poor will be living in countries affected by high levels of violence.

2030 is the same target date set for the culmination of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In just eight years, we could see either the dire progression of current conflict trends or the impact of the SDG framework upon the development of a sustainable future, expected to include the creation of just, peaceful and inclusive societies set out in SDG 16. Christine Smith-Simonsen, Associate Professor at the University of Tromsø, recently said about SDG 16, “it can be argued that the achievement of this one goal [peace] is a precondition for the success of the others.”

With that in mind, we jump forward to this important goal in our ongoing Sustainable Development Goals blog series. We explore the research happening across countries and disciplines focusing on peace, justice and strong institutions, and the most highly cited papers and topics in this area.

What is SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions?

SDG 16 focuses on fostering sustainable, peaceful and inclusive societies, and concerns all considerations related to the preservation and defense of human rights.

It includes 24 distinct targets that seek to reduce all forms of violence, corruption and injustice. Some of these targets include :

• Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere
• End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children
• Promote and enforce non-discriminatory laws and policies for sustainable development

Criminology tops all other disciplines in SDG 16

Using InCites Benchmarking & Analytics we identified 25,798 publications that map to SDG 16 between 2015 and 2021. The top disciplines in this cohort include criminology, family studies, law, public environmental and occupational health, applied and clinical psychology, women’s studies, social sciences, international relations and social work, showing strong output overall in social and institutional research.

Top disciplines aligned with SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Source: InCites Benchmarking & Analytics

Securing peace and justice is a global effort

Publications on SDG 16 are issued all over the world. The top countries that published articles related to SDG 16 between 2015 and 2021 are the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Spain followed by Germany, Brazil, South Africa, the Netherlands and Mainland China. These studies are funded by major institutions around the world including the United States Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health (NIH); the European Commission; U.K. Research Innovation and other government offices worldwide.

SDG 16 and Highly Cited Papers

Mass incarceration and racial health disparities

We next sought to uncover the authors with Highly Cited Papers relating to SDG 16.

The most cited paper with 301 citations is “Mass incarceration, public health, and widening inequality in the USA,” authored by Christopher Wildeman from Cornell University and Emily Wang from Yale School of Medicine.

This article examines how mass incarceration shapes inequality in health. The United States leads the world’s mass incarceration rate, which disproportionately affects Black Americans. Authors explore the ways that incarceration is detrimental to mental and physical health, not only of those in jail, but also of their families and especially their children.

“Mass incarceration contributes to racial health disparities in the USA across a range of outcomes because of its direct and indirect consequences for health, and the disproportionate concentration of incarceration among black communities. Because the USA incarcerates many more of its citizens than do other developed democracies, mass incarceration might have contributed to the country’s lagging performance on health indicators such as life expectancy.”

“Police killings and their spillover effects on the mental health of Black Americans: a population-based, quasi-experimental study,” by Jacob Bor from Boston University School of Public Health Atheendar S Venkataramani from Pennsylvania University department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy; David Williams from Harvard University, Dept Social & Behavioral Sciences, and Alexander Rand Tsai from Massachusetts General Hospital division of Global Psychiatry.

This article received 281 citations since its publication in 2018. It examines how police killings of Black Americans affects the mental health of a wide-ranging group of people, not only those connected to the victim.  For example, the study found that nearly 40% of Black American respondents were exposed to one or more police killings of unarmed Black Americans in their state of residence in the three months prior to the survey. These killings have direct negative mental health effects not only for witnesses, but for the wider Black population in the United States.

The authors state the following:

“In our nationally representative, quasi-experimental study, police killings of unarmed black Americans had adverse effects on the mental health of black Americans in the general population. These findings bolster calls to more accurately measure police killings and provide an additional public health rationale to better understand and address the potential pathogenic effects of police killings of unarmed black Americans and other manifestations of structural racism in the USA.”

Young men of color face highest risk of police use of force

The third most Highly Cited Paper is “Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race-ethnicity, and sex,” by Frank Edwards from Rutgers State University, School of Criminal Justice; Hedwig Lee from Washington University Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity and Michael Esposito from Washington University department of Sociology.

In this study, the authors use data on police-involved deaths to estimate the risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States across social groups, age, race and gender, using U.S. census identification .

The study found that Black women and men, , and Latino men face higher lifetime risk of being killed by police than do their white peers. The study also found that the risk is highest for Black men, who face about a 1 in 1,000 chance of being killed by police. The authors state that:

“The risk of being killed by police is jointly patterned by one’s race, gender, and age. Police violence is a leading cause of death for young men, and young men of color face exceptionally high risk of being killed by police. Inequalities in risk are pronounced throughout the life course. This study reinforces calls to treat police violence as a public health issue.”

Studying inequity and violence promotes social justice

SDG 16 calls for social justice, safety and equality. This goal aims to end all forms of injustice, violence and abuse, and ensure that all humans have equal rights. As mentioned, the targets of this goal are all-encompassing and include stopping the exploitation of children, reducing illicit financial and arms flow, and reducing corruption and bribery in all their forms. However,  despite how broad these targets are, two clear research areas stood out in the corpus of studies mapped to SDG 16: racial injustice (especially racial biases within the United States justice system) and violence against women.

Racism in the United States and around the world is a long-standing issue that permeates almost every facet of daily life. The studies highlighted in this article demonstrate the specific toll racial injustice has on mental and physical health, which in turn can result in low life expectancy. Unfortunately, these outcomes appear to only have been exacerbated as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on.

Another global crisis worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic is violence against women, which was the most prevalent topic covered by the overall corpus of literature mapped to SDG16. According to the UN Women’s survey data from 13 countries, almost half of all women reported that they or a woman they know experienced a form of violence since the COVID-19 pandemic.

We extracted the titles from the top 1,000 cited articles on SDG 16 and used a ‘word cloud’ to illustrate the most studied and published papers. Within SDG 16, the most recurring topics are those relating to violence against women. As can be seen from the word cloud illustration, sexual, domestic and intimate partner abuse and violence are the most published topics within this area.

Created May 30th, 2022, by article authors, using: https://www.wordclouds.com/

Violence against women is also a key focus of SDG 5: Gender equality, which aims to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls. We will be exploring this SDG in an upcoming article in this series, so let us know via Twitter (@ClarivateAG) if there are areas within this body of research you’re interested in knowing more about.

Several interlinking subject areas can be found throughout the SDGs, but the intersection between SDG 16 (peace) and SDG 5 (gender equality) highlights a point we made at the start of this post: achieving the targets of all SDGs is entwined with the success of SDG 16. Conflict and injustice aggravate all other crises, particularly those related to human rights and equality.

It is pertinent that research in this area continues to grow and be used to define policies, programs and long-term strategies that tackle the underlying causes of social injustice—and can withstand unexpected and complex global challenges.

Stay up to date

We discussed the SDG Publishers Compact in the first post in our series and then celebrated the Highly Cited Researchers contributing to SDG 1: No Poverty and SDG 2: Zero Hunger. We then shone a spotlight on top researchers contributing to Good Health and Well-Being (SDG 3) and Quality Education (SDG 4).

In our next posts, we will identify Highly Cited Researchers who are working to address SDG 5: Gender Equality and SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation. Keep an eye on our social media channels for updates.

At Clarivate, sustainability is at the heart of everything we do, and this includes support of human rights, diversity and inclusion, and social justice. Read more about our commitment to driving sustainability worldwide, and see highlights from our 2021 Clarivate Sustainability Report.

The post Highly Cited Papers in SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions appeared first on Clarivate.

Continued escalation of conflict in Ukraine has halted much of the country’s research, as many academics have been displaced and others tragically killed or or missing^[1]. Further, early career researchers (graduate level students or postdoctoral students who are at the beginning of their careers) may be more likely to be of the age to join the military and support combat-related efforts. Those who continue their research, whether within Ukraine or while displaced, may encounter issues with accessing their institution’s equipment and resources.

We cover this topic below and in our Ideas to Innovation podcast. Listen here for more.

View podcast

Why are early career researchers so important?

A vast amount of scientific research is conducted by early career researchers (ECRs). They bring talent, skills and ideas to the academic workforce, and research shows they are considerably more diverse when it comes to gender and ethnicity than researchers more advanced in their careers. What’s more, ECRs will eventually become the leaders in their respective fields. Nurturing their development and ensuring they can learn from and progress the work of others in a safe environment is critical to the future of research in Ukraine and elsewhere.

“As can be seen, the numbers are staggering, indicating thousands of scientists and researchers at the beginning of their careers potentially unable to pursue their work.”

Ukraine research areas most at risk

In this analysis, we aimed to understand which subject areas might be most affected in Ukraine’s future. To do this, we retrieved all of Ukraine’s publications from the Web of Science. We then calculated the ‘academic age’ of these authors, which involved looking at the difference between their first and last year of publication. We only selected authors who published an article in 2021 or 2022 with no publications prior to 2021, as this likely indicates a researcher at the onset of their scientific endeavor.

Through this effort, we identified 540 categories that recent early career authors have focused on. Figure 1 shows the top 12 categories that more than 1,000 early career researchers contribute to.

[bctt tweet=”In #Ukraine, medicine and chemistry are each studied by more than 2,000 #ECRs. Find out which other #research areas might be most affected in Ukraine’s future by @ClarivateAG”]

Computer science, physics and engineering, among other disciplines, recently benefitted from the focus of over 1,000 early career researchers who managed to publish only one article in 2021 and 2022. Figures 1 and 2 show the number of early career researchers we identified in each discipline.

Figure 1: Top 12 categories with more than 1,000 early career authors

Source: Web of Science

There are many other disciplines and areas of research that have captured the attention of hundreds of early career scientists including biology, immunology, environmental sciences and more (see figure 2), all likely affected by the lingering war.

Figure 2: Top 15 categories with more than 100 early career authors

Source: Web of Science

In our previous blog we discussed the immense contributions of Ukrainian researchers to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For example, we were able to show Ukrainian researchers had published 5,863 scientific publications towards the SDGs since 2017, which include 1,728 papers focusing on SDG-3: Good Health and Well-Being and 545 papers focusing on SDG-5: Gender Equality. Given the lingering war, the future of these areas of research and development is also in jeopardy.

Global efforts to support Ukrainian early career researchers

Many research institutions around the world are supporting Ukrainian early career researchers by offering fellowships, scholarships, visiting researcher status and employment for displaced young scientists.

Science for Ukraine is an example of a global effort to coordinate support for displaced scientists. This organization connects research institutions with Ukrainian scientists to support temporary solutions for those who are seeking refuge and ways to continue their scientific pursuits.

Another recently launched effort are FEMS (Federation of European Microbiology Societies) grants that aim to enable Early Career Microbiologists to undergo research and training at a European host institution (academic or industrial). The European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers (Eurodoc) also created a special task force within Eurodoc that is dedicated to supporting doctoral candidates and junior researchers.

However, although there are many emerging support systems in place, they can be difficult for young scientists to access. Because the Ukrainian government prevents males under 60 from leaving the country (an effort to continue national protection efforts), these early career scientists are in both physical and professional danger.

Clarivate is also supporting displaced researchers with a dedicated resource center that provides a package of software tools, information and insights.

See the Clarivate resource center for displaced researchers here, or read our other articles about Ukrainian innovation and contributions to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. You can also listen to our podcast on the series, here.

About the author

Gali Halevi is Director at the Institute for Scientific Information. Previously she was Associate Dean of Libraries & Information Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Mount Sinai Health System. She has a background in bibliometrics and has worked in academic publishing and as an information specialist for pharmaceutical and financial companies.

ORCiD 0000-0003-1967-4147 ; Web of Science ResearchID AAD-2257-2021

^[1] https://sciencebusiness.net/news/ukrainian-researchers-navigate-times-war

The post The future of research in Ukraine is under threat appeared first on Clarivate.

Ukraine has a rich history when it comes to scientific innovation, from physics to life sciences, chemistry and engineering. In this blog, part of a new series highlighting the contributions from Ukraine to global research, we analyze the growth and diversity of subject areas in Ukraine. We also look at Ukraine’s contribution to global Research Fronts, which form when clusters of Highly Cited Papers are frequently cited together.

In recent years, Ukraine has developed a reputation as an international information technology (IT) hub. Its IT sector has seen tremendous growth with many international companies expanding into Ukraine, including Microsoft, Google, Oracle and Samsung who opened R&D facilities in Kyiv. According to Forbes magazine, the current aggressions from Russia have disrupted services from 70,000 – 100,000 highly qualified workers, including many with digital engineering and IT skills.

As an emerging nation, and even though it is one of the poorest nations in Europe by Gross Domestic Product per capita, Ukraine has invested in its scientific endeavors. It has a USD $571M Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D and has seen advancement in several fields including computer science, physics, chemistry, engineering and more.

Infused by international investments, Ukraine saw significant advancements in its renewable energy with total investments amounting to $3.99 billion. In 2021, the World Bank approved $200 million to support the Ukrainian Higher Education system via the Ukraine Improving Higher Education for Results Project, and in 2020, Ukraine climbed five places in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ratings.

We cover this topic below and in our Ideas to Innovation podcast. Listen here for more.

View podcast

Scientific innovation in Ukraine, by the numbers

Increased investments in Ukraine’s science, technology and education can also be seen through the scientific publishing lens.

Using InCites Benchmarking and Analytics, we first looked at Ukraine’s overall scientific output on macro, meso and micro levels.  As can be seen from Figure 1, between 2017-2021, Ukraine’s research output focused on macro topics such as physics (19%), clinical and life sciences (16%), chemistry (16%), social sciences (12%), engineering and material sciences (10%), and electrical engineering (10%) with a total of 52,618 papers published.

Figure 1: Macro level topics 2017-2021 publications

Source: InCites

On a meso level, in physics, we see publications in areas of particles and fields and superconductor; metallurgical engineering mechanic in engineering; synthesis and nanoparticles in chemistry and more.

Figure 2: Meso level topics 2017-2021 publications

Source: InCites

Finally, on a micro level, we see scientific output from Ukraine on topics in physics such as Tokamak, a machine that confines a plasma using magnetic fields. Ukrainian research also covered the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), the second highest-energy heavy-ion collider in the world. The RHIC is located at Brookhaven laboratory in the United States used by an international team of researchers.

The Plasma Nitriding process, another focus of Ukrainian research papers in physics, is used to increase wear resistance, surface hardness and fatigue by creating a hard layer including compressive stresses. Chemistry and engineering-related topics include graphene, phosphors and more (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Micro level topics 2017-2021 publications

Source: InCites

Ukraine’s breakthrough research areas

Next, we examined innovation in Ukraine by analyzing the country’s contributions to the global Research Fronts. A Research Front is a group of highly cited papers in a specialized topic defined by cluster analysis, which you can read more about here. In short, Research Fronts demonstrate topical, promising and emerging research areas, and themselves can become an object of study.

We retrieved Ukraine’s publications from 2017 and mapped them to the Research Fronts citations topics. Our analysis shows that Ukrainian research is contributing to several key Research Fronts.

Computer science and artificial intelligence

In the computer science and artificial intelligence category, we tracked 251 papers led by Ukrainian researchers. This may be the result of the country’s substantial investment in artificial intelligence in 2020 given Ukraine had the largest number of AI companies in Eastern Europe at the time—alongside the success of billion-dollar Ukrainian startups such as Grammarly and GitLab. These articles were published by leading institutions across the country including The Ministry of Education Science of Ukraine, LVIV Polytech National University and The National Academy of Sciences to name just a few. Figure 4 demonstrates the steady increase in Ukraine’s artificial intelligence related papers since 2017. Unfortunately, recent events have crippled the progress of research and there were only 11 papers published in this area in 2022 so far.

Figure 4: Ukraine’s output growth in computer science and artificial intelligence since 2017.

Source: Web of Science

Engineering, electrical and electronics research

In the engineering, electrical and electronic category, we tracked 89 papers on electric vehicles research. According to market research, Ukraine’s electric car market has shown significant growth in recent years. Between 2018 and 2020, the number of electric cars grew by 375% and research has responded to that market growth since 2017. This aligns with the global trend: electric vehicles are predicted to account for more than half of all global car sales by 2040.

Figure 5: Publications growth on electric vehicles since 2017.

Source: Web of Science

What stood out in COVID-19 research?

Among its many contributions to science, Ukraine’s researchers published more than 770 papers related to COVID-19 since 2020. We analyzed the titles and abstracts of these documents and revealed an array of topics within this research area. Figure 6 is a word cloud of the most frequent words that occur in the abstracts and titles. It demonstrates the breadth of Ukraine’s research on COVID-19 including papers about education and students, economic conditions, research methods and international and European impact.

Source: Web of Science and https://www.wordclouds.com/

Conclusions

Ukraine has a rich research history and makes significant contributions to the global scientific effort, especially by progressing multiple Research Fronts. In the past decade, the country has seen tremendous growth in domestic and foreign investments in research and development. From computer science and IT to education, alternative energy and more, it is the preferred destination for many investors. Such investment has enabled Ukraine to develop the infrastructure needed for sustainable, efficient technologies and processes. This, in turn, supports economic development and human well-being, which is a target of the UN’s ninth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG: 9), Industry, innovation and infrastructure.

Its scientific research arena has blossomed through rapid growth of scientific papers in the past five years as well, which is the result of expedited Ukrainian research across several scientific disciplines such as engineering, computer science, physics and chemistry. Ukraine’s contribution to COVID-19 research is also significant, with research spanning across medicine, social sciences and education. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, the continued aggressions from Russia have sadly halted this progress with a low number of papers published in 2022.

Clarivate has recently launched a resource center that provides a package of software tools, information and insights for displaced researchers in Ukraine. You can also read the first post in our series highlighting the contribution from Ukraine to the global research effort, here, and our post about Ukrainian early career researchers and the future of research, here. You can also listen to our podcast on the series here.

About the author

Gali Halevi is Director at the Institute for Scientific Information. Previously she was Associate Dean of Libraries & Information Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Mount Sinai Health System. She has a background in bibliometrics and has worked in academic publishing and as an information specialist for pharmaceutical and financial companies.

ORCiD 0000-0003-1967-4147 ; Web of Science ResearchID AAD-2257-2021

The post Ukraine: Innovation, technology and cutting-edge research appeared first on Clarivate.

At Clarivate, we are committed to supporting the researcher community in Ukraine, including displaced researchers, during and beyond ongoing attacks on the country from Russia. Our research shows that Ukraine has contributed more than 5,000 scientific publications towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals since 2017, including on peace and justice initiatives (SDG-16). In this article, we analyze the content and impact of these papers, and discuss the global collaborative effort towards the Sustainable Development Goals—in Ukraine and worldwide.

The attacks on Ukraine by Russia have caused needless devastation and loss of life, leaving large communities without adequate food, water and power, and forcing more than four million people to flee into neighboring countries. This conflict will have lasting economic, social and policy implications for years to come, and it has and will continue to affect the advancement of research in Ukraine.

Clarivate continues to support calls for an immediate ceasefire and has taken several steps to support humanitarian aid in Ukraine, which we discuss in more detail later in this article.

In support of Ukrainian researchers, we also wanted to explore and uplift the region’s contributions towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) since 2017. Understanding Ukraine’s progress towards these goals is important not only because the Ukrainian research community currently needs our support, but also because global work towards the Sustainable Development Goals is collaborative. The progress and efforts of each nation secure a better outcome for all, as we work together to shape a better world.

With that in mind, we explore:

• • What are the UN Sustainable Development Goals
  • Highly Cited Papers mapped to the SDGs
  • The impact of Ukrainian SDG research
  • International collaboration towards sustainable development
  • Ukraine’s contributions to SDG-16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions
  • Findings and recommendations

  We cover these topics below and in our Ideas to Innovation podcast. Listen here for more.

• View podcast

   

  What are the UN Sustainable Development Goals?

  In September 2015, the 70th session of the UN General Assembly issued a universal agenda to achieve sustainable development globally. Known as Agenda 2030, it identified 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 supporting targets.

  Ukraine joined the global effort to support and adapt the SDGs as a member of the UN. The SDGs identified by the UN were then adapted to the Ukrainian national context, setting specific goals for the economic, scientific and policy priorities of the nation. Each SDG was assigned partners within Ukraine, which include research institutions, government offices, nonprofits and more.

   

  Tracking Ukraine’s progress towards the SDGs

  In this article, we review the contribution of Ukrainian research to the SDGs since 2017, as seen through the lens of scientific papers in each area, their impact and collaboration with the international community.

  For this analysis we’ve used InCites Benchmarking & Analytics, the web-based research evaluation tool from Clarivate. InCites maps SDGs across institutions, countries and topics. In Figure 1, we show the distribution of Ukraine’s scientific output across all SDGs, with 1,728 papers focusing on SDG-3: Good Health and Well-Being and 545 papers focusing on SDG-5: Gender Equality published since 2017.

   

  Figure 1: Ukraine publications across SDGs.

  

  Source: Benchmarking & Analytics

   

  According to our data, Ukraine contributed a total of 5,863 scientific publications towards SDGs since 2017 (see figure 2). These results are in line with other sources of data including the Good Country Index which uses data from United Nations, the World Bank and other international institutions to calculate a country’s contributions to the “common good of humanity.” On this list, Ukraine was 13th in the Science and Technology category among 124 other countries in 2014, and 14th among 163 countries in 2020.

   

  Figure 2: Number of Ukraine publications across SDGs. Source: Web of Science

  

  Source: Web of Science

   

  Highly cited papers mapped to the SDGs

  The highest cited paper identified from Ukrainian researchers in support of SDG-3: Good Health and Well-being and SDG-5: Gender Equality, is Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 354 diseases and injuries for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017, which was published in The Lancet in 20182 with over 3,000 citations.

   

  Figure 3: Highest cited paper SDG-3: Good Health and Wellbeing and SDG-5: Gender Equality. Source: Web of Science

  

  Source: Web of Science

   

  The impact of Ukrainian SDG research

  The scientific impact of Ukrainian research across SDGs is seen through the percentage of papers cited across the various SDGs. At least 60% of all papers published from Ukrainian researchers in SDG-15: Life on Land; SDG-14: Life Below Water; SDG-6: Clean Water and Sanitation; SDG-2: Zero Hunger and SDG-13: Climate Action have been cited. More than 50% of papers in SDG-7: Affordable and Clean Energy; SDG-11: Sustainable Cities and Communities; SDG-12: Responsible Consumption and Production; SDG-9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure; SDG-5 Gender Equality and SDG-3: Good Health and Well-being have been cited since 2017 (see Figure 4).

   

  Figure 4: Percentage of papers cited across SDGs. Source: Web of Science

  

  Source: Web of Science

   

  International collaboration towards sustainable development

• Ukrainian researchers collaborate with the international community across SDGs. Figure 5 demonstrates the percentage of international collaboration in each of the SDGs, showing that:
  • For SDG-14: Life Below Water, 55.8% of papers are a result of international collaboration.
  • For SDG-13: Climate action and SDG-15: Life on Land, slightly more than 49% of papers stem from international collaboration.

  Using Web of Science analytics tools, we mapped the primary countries that Ukraine collaborated with within these SDGs. Figures 6-8 show that Poland, Germany and the United States are among Ukraine’s most frequent collaborators on scientific papers that correspond to the above SDGs.

   

  Figure 5: Percentage of international collaborations per SDG. Source: Web of Science

  

  Source: Web of Science

   

  Ukrainian researchers collaborate on papers mapping to SDG-14: Life Below Water across Europe and in the United States, particularly with Poland, Germany and Spain (see Figure 6).

   

  Figure 6: International collaboration between Ukraine and other countries/ regions on SDG-14: Life Below Water. Source: Web of Science

  

  Source: Web of Science

   

  On SDG-13: Climate Action, Ukraine collaborates primarily with Germany and Poland, followed by the United States, Austria and Russia. Our data shows that Ukraine also collaborated with Japan and Australia in this area. Another goal that sees a high percentage of international collaboration between Ukraine and other countries is SDG-15: Life on Land. Here we also see high collaboration rates between Ukraine and Germany, Poland and the United States, as well as with other countries in Europe and Asia.

   

  Ukraine’s contributions to SDG-16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions

  Finally, we looked at Ukraine’s contribution to SDG-16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions, where we identified 77 publications that mapped to this SDG. The top institutions publishing papers that map to SDG-16 are presented in figure 8, led by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, with 51 scientific papers since 2017.

   

  Figure 9: Ukrainian institutions publishing in SDG-16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions. Source: Web of Science

  

  Source: Web of Science

   

  Findings

  • Ukraine actively contributes to the scientific effort towards the Sustainable Development Goals with 5,863 papers published since 2017. Ukraine shows strong contributions especially in SDG-3: Good Health and Wellbeing and SDG-5: Gender Equality.
  • Ukraine’s scientific output is also highly cited. At least 60% of all papers published in SDG-15: Life on Land; SDG-14: Life Below Water; SDG-6: Clean Water and Sanitation; SDG-2: Zero Hunger and SDG-13: Climate Action have been cited, while over 50% of papers in SDG-7: Affordable and Clean Energy; SDG-11: Sustainable Cities and Communities; SDG-12: Responsible Consumption and Production; SDG-9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure; SDG-5: Gender Equality and SDG-3: Good Health and Well-being have been cited since 2017.
  • Ukrainian research is highly collaborative. While all papers mapped to the SDGs demonstrate international collaborations, over 50% of papers mapped to SDG-14: Life Below Water are the result of international collaboration. The countries Ukraine collaborates with the most are Poland, Germany, United States, Italy, Spain and Russia. Figure 10 shows the percentage of international collaborations between Ukraine and the global scientific community in each of the SDG areas. As can be seen over 55% of all Ukraine research on SDG-14 is a result of international collaborations. More than 40% of all research papers on SDGs 13, 15, 6, 12, 7, 3, 5 and 11 are the product of international collaborations. These collaborations address several different subject areas, but one focal point for many of these countries may be related to marine pollution in the black sea and clean up initiatives.
  • SDG-16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions doesn’t yet include very many publications, but is an important goal—especially now. Our data shows that the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine are leading local authorship in this area.

   

  Figure 9: Percentage of international collaborations between Ukraine and the global scientific community by SDG

  

  Source: InCitesBenchmarking & Analytics

   

  Recommendations

  The conflict in Ukraine could have devastating effects on its research community for many years to come. This will also affect the global scientific community given the Ukraine’s high collaboration rate across several SDGs. We hope that the insights we have shared here help to provide a greater understanding of the rich and varied contributions that Ukrainian researchers have made towards the SDGs as well as the strong potential from the region ahead.

  In light of continued aggressions upon Ukraine from Russia, we at Clarivate have looked for ways in which we can support the Ukrainian research community. We have recently launched a Resource Ccenter that provides a package of software tools, information and insights for displaced researchers in Ukraine. You can visit our resource center here or view our statement about ceasing all commercial activities in Russia.

  There are also several other community initiatives that support displaced researchers, including the team behind #ScienceForUkraine. This is a community group of volunteer scholars and students dedicated to highlighting the funding opportunities and student and faculty positions for Ukrainian researchers in universities worldwide. The European Commission has also recently launched its European Research Area for Ukraine, an initiative specifically dedicated to support researchers.

   

  This post is the first of our new series highlighting the contribution from Ukraine to the global research effort. Coming soon, we look at the growth and diversity of subject areas in Ukraine. If you would like to read more about Sustainable Development Goals, view here.

   

  About the author

  Gali Halevi is Director at the Institute for Scientific Information. Previously she was Associate Dean of Libraries & Information Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Mount Sinai Health System. She has a background in bibliometrics and has worked in academic publishing and as an information specialist for pharmaceutical and financial companies.

  ORCiD 0000-0003-1967-4147 ; Web of Science ResearchID AAD-2257-2021

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The Highly Cited Researchers recognition program is produced annually by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) at Clarivate with analysis led by David Pendlebury, Head of Research Analysis and Ryan Fry, Senior Product Data Analyst.

This program recognizes scientists whose research demonstrates significant influence, seen through high citation rates of their works over the last 11 years. This recognition of exceptional scientific performance of research articles covers 21 fields (as used in the Essential Science Indicators, or ESI, from Clarivate) and includes thousands of researchers around the world. The 2021 list identifies about 3,800 Highly Cited Researchers in the 21 fields of the sciences and social sciences, and about 2,800 Highly Cited Researchers with multiple fields.

The SDG Publishers Compact and our commitment to it

Developed by the United Nations in 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include 17 global calls for action to ensure peace and prosperity for people and the planet.

The UN identified special considerations for publishers with the release of the SDG Publishers Compact which includes 10 action points that publishers, publishing associations and others can commit to undertaking in order to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. One action item for publishers is a commitment to promote and communicate about SDGs through marketing, websites, promotions and projects.

At Clarivate, we serve the STM research and publishing communities. For example, Ryan Fry led an ISI initiative to use CWTS Leiden’s SDG queries to pave the way for mapping SDGs in InCites. Sixteen of the 17 SDGs are now available as distinct Research Areas in InCites, applied at the document level.

Recognizing the contributions of Highly Cited Researchers towards the SDGs

In this blog series, we showcase a few Highly Cited Researchers and their scientific papers that demonstrate exceptional impact corresponding to the SDGs. While we’re pleased to celebrate these scientists leading the way in sustainability research, these spotlights are not meant to be comprehensive lists of all Highly Cited Researchers contributing to a given SDG; there are many other Highly Cited Researchers that have also contributed to these SDGs, not named here.

In this first post, we focus on SDG 1: No Poverty, which aims to eradicate extreme poverty for all people by 2030 and SDG 2: Zero Hunger, which aims to end hunger and ensure access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food to all.

SDG 1: No Poverty

SDG 1: No Poverty aims to eradicate poverty by implementing social protection systems for the poor, build resilience to environmental, economic and social disasters, ensure equal rights to ownership, basic services, technology and economic resources and more.

For this goal, we celebrate Highly Cited Researcher 2021 and Professor Liu Yansui, who is a land use and rural geography specialist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His paper “Spatio-temporal patterns of rural poverty in China and targeted poverty alleviation strategies” received more than 170 citations across Web of Science databases. In this paper, Prof. Liu et. al., sought to discover the main characteristics of poverty in rural Mainland China and its driving mechanism. Using poverty data, his team was able to demonstrate the main areas in China where poverty is acute, its potential spread across regions, as well as its causes.

The paper offers guidance and strategy to policymakers on ways to combat poverty using technology, vocational training, improved major infrastructure and public service construction, among others.

“It is necessary for China to implement differential policies for poverty alleviation to end poverty in all of its forms everywhere… China should make full use of the late-developing advantages in poverty-stricken areas and construct a new platform of rural reconstructing. Building the new-type subjects of rural transformation in poor areas also seems to be imperative.”

SDG 2: Zero Hunger

SDG 2 aims to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition, double agricultural productivity in the next 15 years as well as the productivity and income of small-scale food producers, and create universal access to safe and nutritious foods.

For SDG 2, we identified Highly Cited Researcher 2021 and Professor Pete Smith, Chair in Plant and Soil Sciences at the University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom. His paper “Strategies for feeding the world more sustainably with organic agriculture” received more than 200 citations across Web of Science databases.

In the article, the authors created a food system model that addresses organic agriculture conversion, reduction in food wastage and animal products consumption to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address hunger.

“Our study shows that organic agriculture can contribute to providing sufficient food and improving environmental impacts, only if adequately high proportions of legumes are produced and with significant reductions of food-competing feed use, livestock product quantities, and food wastage. The development of organic agriculture in the future should take up these challenges on the consumption side, and not only focus on sustainable production”

 

“What I wanted people to take away from this study is that we can feed the world using more sustainable forms of agriculture, but only if we change the balance of food we eat, for example, by radically reducing meat and dairy consumption in over-consuming countries. Ever greater levels of agrochemical inputs into agriculture is not a given, if we reimagine what food we eat and how we produce it.”

Another Highly Cited Researcher 2021 who works in the SDG 2 arena is Professor Marcel G.A, van der Heijden, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology from the University of Zurich. His article, “An Underground Revolution: Biodiversity and Soil Ecological Engineering for Agricultural Sustainability” received more than 450 citations across Web of Science databases.

In this article, the authors demonstrate how targeted manipulations of soil organisms can support soil biodiversity, which in turn enhances sustainable ecosystems.

“Our review demonstrates that soil organisms have the potential to enhance sustainable ecosystem functioning. We are now beginning to realize the potential below our feet and its importance for plant productivity and environmental sustainability. Humans are taking much from the soils of the Earth, and a one-sided focus on high production in agricultural settings has resulted in the successive deterioration of the fundamental properties of those soils, including the biological potential for self-regulation”

 

“Our paper demonstrates that it is possible to enhance the sustainability of ecosystems by taking measures that promote soil biodiversity. We provide examples that show that a wide range of soil biota provide nutrients to crops or suppress disease. Stimulating such organisms in ecosystems through specific measures (soil ecological engineering) enhances the sustainability of ecosystems and reduces the need for inputs (fertilisers, pesticides).”

In our next post, we recognize Highly Cited Researchers 2021 who work in SDG 3: Good Health and Wellbeing and SDG 4: Quality Education.

At Clarivate, sustainability is at the heart of everything we do. Read our Corporate Sustainability commitment, or view our Sustainability eBook collection brings together 5,000 titles for research, teaching and learning.

About the authors

Ryan Fry is a Senior Product Data Analyst at the ISI. Since 2013, he has worked for Clarivate in various roles in User Experience and Technology before joining the ISI in 2019. He manages the yearly Highly Cited Researchers program and works on other bibliometric projects throughout the year.

ORCiD: 0000-0002-2388-7359

Gali Halevi is Director at the Institute for Scientific Information. Previously she was Associate Dean of Libraries & Information Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Mount Sinai Health System. She has a background in bibliometrics and has worked in academic publishing and as an information specialist for pharmaceutical and financial companies.

ORCiD: 0000-0003-1967-4147; Web of Science ResearcherID AAD-2257-2021

The post Highly Cited Researchers address the Sustainable Development Goals appeared first on Clarivate.