Science and economy: The place of Turkey in the world

Aims: We aimed to provide information on world's economic and academic citation and to find the characteristics of overall, medical and particularly general surgical scientific paper production. Material and Method: Data form SCI were used in order to determine the progress of scientific production in the world. Fourty countries with the highest H-index rank that constituted 90% of the world's economic and scientific production were analyzed. An economic-scientific ranking (ESR) was developed in terms of average ranking of eleven criteria of these countries. Additionally, comparison of proportionate areas like USA versus eight European countries and Turkey vs Russia, Mexico, Egypt and Iran was done. Results: A tendency of decline in citations per paper was observed despite a constant increase in the number of articles. There was a considerably high correlation between ESR and H-index and total number of citations. While the proportion of USA in total world citations decreased, eight European countries filled this gap and became leader in medicine and overall in science. Turkey, which has a relatively high rank in the production of scientific articles, is inadequate in terms of the H-index, and new developments are needed. Although the number of publications from Turkey is considerably high, it is observed that H-index and the number of citations are inadequate. Conclusion: The H-index and total number of citations have been proved to be important in indicating social development, along with scientific productivity. It was concluded that the government and scientific institutions should aim to increase the number of publications that may provide high levels of citations in Turkey that needs innovation and patent formation, i. e. qualificational evolution.