Scientific Output and Impact: Relative Positions of China, Europe, India, Japan and the USA

Publication outputs and word shares of scientific publication are presented for 1981-2004 for China, Europe, India, Japan and the USA. Our results are compared with those available in the literature. The current situation whereby the main producers of scientific output statistics use different counting methods -thus, producing major differences in scientific output values -is unsatisfactory. The share in the total number of publications has been stagnating or gradually decreasing in recent years for Europe, the USA, India and Japan although there is no absolute decline in publication activities. The most dramatic trend has been the fast growth in China. The USA is still maintaining a lead in publication impact. The impact from EU, Japan, China and India increases but is still far behind as compared to USA. In the conclusion the question is raised whether publications and citations are the real output of science or constitute the discourse of science. There is a risk that we concentrate our discussion on what can be easily measured, i. e. publications and citations, instead of what really matters.