2.3 Citation impact

The average number of citations per publication is used for assessing the scientific impact of publications, especially at country level. This indicator – henceforth referred to as “citation impact”- is calculated as the ratio of the total number of citations to the total number of publications, without taking into account differences in citation practices among scientific fields.

Figure 2.3.1 presents the citation impact of Greek, EU and OECD publications. In the most recent 5-year period, 2006-2010, Greek publications received 4.98 citations on average, surpassing the OECD (4.79) and approaching the EU (5.52) average.

Notably, between 1996-2010, the growth rate of the citation impact of Greek publications exceeded the corresponding figure for EU and OECD publications. This rate slowed down during 2006-2010, following the trend of the EU and OECD publications which, in fact, showed a higher decrease compared to that of Greek publications (Figure 2.3.2).

Figure 2.3.1

Figure 2.3.2

Rate of change: 1 + [(number of publications in year “n” – number of publications in year “n-1”)/ number of publications in year “n-1”]. The rate is 1, if the number of publications is the same across the years compared.

The “relative impact” indicator, as described in Figure 2.3.3, compares citations -per-publication average against the EU and OECD baseline figure, represented in the graphs by the figure “1”.

Greece’s citation impact relative to the EU (0.90) and OECD (1.04) exhibited an ascending trend between 1996-2010, surpassing the OECD baseline but not yet exceeding the EU baseline. 

Figure 2.3.3