Synthetic Organic Chemistry research: Analysis by scientometric indicators

Present study analyses the research output and impact in Synthetic Organic Chemistry (SOC) during 1998–2004 applying standardized scientometric indicators. Volume of research publications and their citations presented as percentage world share is illustrative of trending pattern against time. Adopting relative indicators — Absolute Citation Impact (ACI) and Relative Citation Impact (RCI), a cross national comparison is attempted at three levels of aggregations — global, Asian and Indian. Based on this analysis, it is concluded that G7 nations, being leaders for the volume of literature published and citations attracted are showing a decreasing trend over the years probably due to shifting and diversification of their research efforts to other emerging research fronts. In contrast smaller nations though publishing low volume but high quality research are represented by Netherlands. This country credited with only 1.12% world share of publications has recorded highest Absolute Citation Impact and recorded higher than world average Relative Citation Impact. In Asian region, between the two developing economies India and China, China out-performed India qualitatively by accounting higher citation share, higher Absolute Citation Impact (ACI) and higher Relative Citation Impact (RCI).