Publication Activity of Academic Staff in Russia: Results, Trends, Problems

Introduction. The article outlines some of the government’s initiatives for the development of science at Russian universities in order to increase the research potential of the country as a whole. One such initiative is a Project to increase the competitiveness of the leading universities of the Russian Federation among the world’s leading research and educational centers, or Project 5-100. The aim of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of measures of the government and universities for the development of science in the system of higher education through scientometric indicators. Methods. The study is based on the analysis of scientometric indicators as one of the mechanisms for assessing the effectiveness of the development of scientific activity at a university. The source of information is the international scientometric databases Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus, as well as their analytical platforms, InCites and SciVal. Results and Discussion. The study revealed a tendency toward an increase not only in the number of publications of university scientists, but also a significant increase in their quality. Project 5-100 universities that demonstrate the most significant growth of scientometric indicators in comparison with nationwide Russian indicators are identified. For example, the number of publications in the Web of Science and Scopus databases was 4.5 times greater; the number of publications among the top 1% most cited scientific publications in the world was 7 times greater in 2019 than in 2012, the number of publications among the top 10% was nearly 6 times greater, etc. Conclusion. The article presents an analysis of the dynamics of the main scientometric indicators of Russia over recent years, as well as those of divisions of the Russian Academy of Sciences and universities, including universities participating in Project 5-100: the number of publications, the number of highly cited publications (in the top 1% and the top 10%), the number of publications in top journals (in the top 1% and the top 10%), and the share of publications with international co-authorship. The contribution of Project 5-100 to increasing the visibility of Russian science in the international scientific and educational market is considered. The main measures taken by universities participating in Project 5-100 to increase the publication activity of employees are outlined.