Impact of country-specific characteristics on scientific productivity in clinical neurology research

Objectives The objective of this study was to identify the top 50 countries in the world in clinical neurology research and to use their data to assess the impact of a number of country-specific characteristics on scientific productivity in clinical neurology. Methods The SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SCR) web site was used to identify the top 50 countries in the world based on their total documents in clinical neurology. Using their data 5 country-specific characteristics and 6 productivity indicators (total documents, total cites, h-index, citable documents, self-cites and citations per document) were correlated and examined statistically. Results The number of universities in the world top 500 and the number of clinical neurology journals enlisted in SCR correlated significantly with each of the 6 indicators. The gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and the percentage of GDP spent on research and development (R & D) correlated significantly with 3 and 4 out of the 6 indicators respectively. The population size did not correlate significantly with any of the 6 indicators. Conclusions The number of universities in the world top 500 and the number of clinical neurology journals enlisted in SCR appear to have a strong impact on scientific productivity. GDP per capita and spending on R & D appear to have a moderate impact on productivity that is influenced by the indicator used. Furthermore, population size appears to have no significant impact on productivity in clinical neurology research.